San Francisco's school board made a few mistakes when renaming schools
I first wrote about this last October when it became clear the San Francisco school board was going to change the names of dozens of schools on the grounds that the people they were named after were insufficiently woke. Wednesday of this week the final decision was made and 44 schools were told to start looking for new names. Some of the names removed included Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Paul Revere.
Today, Alex Griswold took a look at the spreadsheet that was used to make the renaming decisions and found that it contained a few errors. In fact, the errors were pointed out in the document under a field called “notes.” But that didn’t seem to matter much.
The Google Doc where the San Francisco school board did it's research for deciding which historical figures to cancel is public, and it's hilariously bad https://t.co/Pc1R7Vv6Rg
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) January 29, 2021
The explanation about Paul Revere given in the document is really odd. Revere was a commander during an American expedition to drive out the British who had claimed a portion of the coast of Maine. The expedition was a historic failure and the Commodore in charge of the American ships was later court martialed. What any of this has to do with the colonization of the Penobscot tribe isn’t made clear.
Another example: "Paul Revere led the Penobscot Expedition, which led to the colonization of the Penobscot."
Notes: "What? No. The Penobscot expedition was fought against the British, in Penobscot Bay. The natives weren't involved."
(voted to rename anyway) pic.twitter.com/uGiKu0moBd
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) January 29, 2021
One of the reasons given for removing Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s name from a school didn’t match up with the dates she served as mayor. Also a reason given for removing Abraham Lincoln’s name is a significant misreading of what happened.
"Abraham Lincoln executed 38 Dakota Indians!"
Notes: "The Minnesota governor was going to execute *300*. Lincoln intervened when he had no obligation to, and saved the vast majority of them."
(voted to rename anyway) pic.twitter.com/KVLCU7TtvD
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) January 29, 2021
Also, James Lick was canceled for funding a racist statue, but if you click the link it says he funded it *posthumously*, so it was his estate that's to blame pic.twitter.com/SFrQeKIt8C
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) January 29, 2021
Kill me pic.twitter.com/M59LEBePja
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) January 29, 2021
This last one also apparently involves confusion over who the school is named after.
Oh missed this one: "Sanchez was a missionary who served as a military chaplain for the colonizers"
Notes: "guys, the school is *on Sanchez Street*, which is named for a different Jose Sanchez."
(voted to renamed anyway) pic.twitter.com/k7njJHxT6N
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) January 29, 2021
These are the people in charge of teaching history to our children. Well, not my children but the children who live in San Francisco. You can probably imagine how that new 1619 curriculum is going to be taught in schools where even Abraham Lincoln is deemed a failure.
Here’s a local news report on the situation:
Advertising by Adpathway