2008 Woodie Awards
Advocating Progress: What's in a name?
Maye Osborne
Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: Editorial/Opinion
02/28/08 - On Monday I had the pleasure of helping the Univocal Legislative Minority Advisory Coalition (ULMAC) and Progresso Latino in their efforts to lobby the Rhode Island House of Representatives to change the state name from the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations to the state of Rhode Island, a bill that was introduced by R.I. Rep. Joseph Almeida. The name, Almeida and his colleagues argue, is a reminder of slavery.
Some people I spoke to argued that the name is our history. I disagree. I have found books, Internet sources and recorded oral stories to work just fine for history. In extreme cases, time capsules also work.
What about African-American and Native-American history? Should they not get a say in how their history is written? This bill is an attempt by minorities to exert control over the state in which they live. They are citizens and have every right to demand this of their government.
Yesterday, two people told me that they never associated plantation with slavery until someone pointed it out. Both were white men. I do not want to speak for all African-Americans, but when I hear "plantation," I think slave.
In elementary school, the only context with which the word plantation was used was to describe slavery. I attended Rhode Island public school and I did well. It was not until I reached a university, a Rhode Island public university, that I learned of other plantations and most of them also involved exploitation of the labor force. If Rhode Island schools associate plantations with slavery, then for all intents and purposes, in the state of Rhode Island "plantation" does imply exploitation.
For the state to persist in reminding the people of their history, it must also remind them of its role in that history. "By the middle of the 18th century, about 10 percent of Rhode Islanders were enslaved," says the Slavery and Justice Report recently released by Brown University, which acknowledged its role in the slave trade. The state did not enforce the state laws put on the books in the mid-seventeenth century against slavery for 200 years.
Some people I spoke to argued that the name is our history. I disagree. I have found books, Internet sources and recorded oral stories to work just fine for history. In extreme cases, time capsules also work.
What about African-American and Native-American history? Should they not get a say in how their history is written? This bill is an attempt by minorities to exert control over the state in which they live. They are citizens and have every right to demand this of their government.
Yesterday, two people told me that they never associated plantation with slavery until someone pointed it out. Both were white men. I do not want to speak for all African-Americans, but when I hear "plantation," I think slave.
In elementary school, the only context with which the word plantation was used was to describe slavery. I attended Rhode Island public school and I did well. It was not until I reached a university, a Rhode Island public university, that I learned of other plantations and most of them also involved exploitation of the labor force. If Rhode Island schools associate plantations with slavery, then for all intents and purposes, in the state of Rhode Island "plantation" does imply exploitation.
For the state to persist in reminding the people of their history, it must also remind them of its role in that history. "By the middle of the 18th century, about 10 percent of Rhode Islanders were enslaved," says the Slavery and Justice Report recently released by Brown University, which acknowledged its role in the slave trade. The state did not enforce the state laws put on the books in the mid-seventeenth century against slavery for 200 years.