Racist woke San Francisco's revisionism school renaming plan rife with historical errors: report

[hamilton]

The San Francisco school board’s controversial decision to strip
the names of 44 schools that honor historical leaders with ties
to racism and oppression was arbitrary, subjective, superficial
and based on research gathered through “casual Google searches,”
a new report has found.

Families for San Francisco, which describes itself as a
political voice, fact-checked the source material and reasoning
that the board’s school renaming committee relied on — and came
to damning conclusions, including that committee members avoided
consulting with historians — relying instead on shakily-sourced
Wikipedia entries and TV shows.

In a 6-1 vote late Tuesday night, the board gave preliminary
approval to renaming the schools — deciding, for example, that
Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington weren’t
fit to have schools named after them, reported the Mission
Local, a community news website.

An online petition slamming the vote has more than 12,500
signatures; a final vote is scheduled April 19.

Paul Revere, El Dorado and even “The Mission” also were too
politically incorrect to adorn school buildings, the board
decided.

“All CA missions are sites of slavery and colonization,” the
school renaming committee stated.

Among the findings from the Families for San Francisco:

The citation that supported taking Paul Revere’s name from a K-8
school was a Top-10 list from the History Channel website.

Businessman and philanthropist James Lick, the wealthiest man in
California when he died in 1876, got the boot because the
committee disliked his funding of a sculpture depicting a
prostrate Indian at the feet of white men. The monument was
recently removed from the Civic Center.

Committee members cited a Curbed article in its discussion of
Lick, who was cut because of his connection with this artwork.
Nobody apparently read the article, however, because it clearly
noted that Lick underwrote the sculpture “posthumously,” via his
estate. He died 18 years before its completion.

What should have been a careful and considered review of Abe
Lincoln by the renaming committee, for example, was discussed in
just under five seconds.

“We are applying impossible standards for naming when even
Abraham Lincoln doesn’t qualify for this honor,” Jennifer
Raiser, a longtime San Francisco author and activist, told the
Post. “We are sending a message to our kids that even if you do
your best and make some mistakes, you are not good enough.”

Raiser pointed out the importance of recognizing and eliminating
systemic racism, but “this effort does not seem to be in keeping
with the reality of COVID and the importance of getting kids
back in the classroom. It’s a diversion from the essential work
that has to happen immediately as our kids are falling behind.”

San Francisco school officials have said middle and high school
students probably won’t return to school this year.

Communities have been renaming schools across the country as
part of a national reckoning around racial justice which
intensified after the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/30/san-franciscos-school-renaming-
plan-full-of-errors-report/