Rhode Island renaming?

Jim Lawrence, responding to my facetious suggestion that the ACLU’s attempt to get a cross out of the L.A. seal might lead to calls to rename Providence, Rhode Island, pointed me to a real Rhode Island renaming suggestion — or, to be precise a Rhode Island and Providence Plantations renaming suggestion, since that’s Rhode Island’s official name. The suggestion turns out to be a couple of years old, but I missed it and thus suspect that many of you might have, too. From the Providence Journal-Bulletin, Apr. 5, 2000:

For almost two hours yesterday, black civic leaders and two state legislators implored a House committee to put a question on November’s election ballot asking whether voters want to change the state’s name to Rhode Island.

The advocates said that while plantations referred to a farm or settlement in Colonial days with no negative connotation, today it most commonly conjures up images of slaves toiling in fields and suffering indignities at the hands of their masters. . . .

“The importance of language is what it conveys today, what it means now,” state Rep. David Cicilline, D-Providence, the chief sponsor of the legislation, told the House Finance Committee. “What it evokes in people is what really matters.” . . .

“As an African-American, and as a citizen of this state, I find the state’s official name repulsive,” [Rev. Virgil Wood, of the Ministers’ Alliance of Rhode Island] said, reading from a letter he intended to submit to The Providence Journal editorial page. . . .

Cicilline said criticism that the issue is an example of political correctness is insulting to African-Americans. . . .

Actually, it seems to me that the proposal itself was more insulting to African-Americans. Most African-Americans, I suspect, aren’t such fragile flowers, who are shocked and offended when they hear a historical term that was also used in the context of slavery.

A Jan. 21, 2000 story says that “This is not the first time state language has offended [Rep. Cicilline]. Two years ago, he won approval of a bill that eliminated the title ‘Master’ when referring to court magistrates. He said the word evoked images of the ‘master’ of a plantation and was offensive to minorities.”

My suggestions for continuing this agenda:

1. Change the term “Majority Whip” in the House of Representatives, and of course the “Master of Arts” degree. (See here for the story of L.A. County’s recent attempt to insist that computer vendors stop using the standard hardware terms “master” and “slave”.)

2. Rename the term “slave” itself, since its historical origins come from “from the widespread enslavement of captured Slavs in the early Middle Ages”.

3. Rename the state “Alabama,” because many descendants of slaves — especially of slaves who lived in Alabama — think of slavery and segregation when they hear about it.