R. E. Lee is not PC

[eisely]

Hey I made a rhyme...

 

The news story below relates a name change for a BSA council in Virginia. I have no strong feelings about this one way or the other. I presume that the local decision makers know what they are doing and what will serve scouting and youth in their area best. Nevertheless, I wonder how many other councils and districts are insufficiently PC.

________________________

 

Va. Boy Scouts Remove Confederate's Name

 

RICHMOND, Va. - Robert E. Lee's name is being removed from the uniforms of Boy Scouts in central Virginia, a change applauded by some black Virginians but criticized by a Civil War heritage group.

 

The Confederate general's name has been used to identify the Richmond-area Boy Scouts of America since 1942. The executive board of the Robert E. Lee Council voted last week to drop Lee's name from its title and logo, beginning sometime next year.

 

Local Scout executives plan to have a new name in place by June 2004.

 

"The suggestion box is open for any and all ideas," Scout executive Robert A. Tuggle said. He said removing Lee's name "was the right thing to do."

 

Board members "acknowledged Lee as an outstanding man, leader and influential person in our country's history," Tuggle said, "and changing the name ... has nothing to do with the character or opinions" of Lee.

 

King Salim Khalfani, a former Scout who is now Virginia director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (news - web sites), believes the decision will boost minority recruitment for local Scout troops.

 

"It is something whose time has truly come because (Lee's name) has been a sticking point for many in the African-American community and many progressive and non-Confederate-loving whites and others," he said.

 

Brag Bowling, commander of the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (news - web sites), disagreed with the decision.

 

"American history has very few people who have represented honor and integrity such as General Lee," Bowling said. "His fame is worldwide. Everything which General Lee stood for are virtues which all people should subscribe to."

 

 

[Twocubdad]

I would say it was inevitable. Eventually, all of American history and culture will be reduced to the Disney version.

[scoutldr]

Since Richmond is the site of the White House of the Confederacy , how about:

 

"Jefferson Davis Council"

 

 

[dsteele]

Interesting topic. There's a reason professional scouters refer to council headquarters city. Actually several reasons. One reason is it tells us which region it's in. Another is that the name of the council can change and usually changes more often than a council moving it's headquarters. I don't know the statistics, but it makes sense to me.

 

Just remember that a name is only a name. I was kind of torn when my local commmunity opened debate to changing the name of Garfield Elementary (named for President Garfield) to the name of a local civil rights activist. The civil rights activist deserves high honor, but wasn't a general or an assassinated President of the United States. He just happened to have died more reently.

 

I thought about pointing out the difference in scale to the public in a letter to the editor and then came to the realization that the name of the school isn't nearly as important as the education being deilivered and accepted within it's walls.

 

I don't think the council means any disrespect to General Lee (who, in spite of his class ranking at West Point, was an excellent soldier. He fought for states rights as a member of one of the founding families of the Colony of Virginia.)

 

I remmeber a similar uproar when the Grand Rapids Council (who's name I don't remember from 15 years ago) decided to change it's name to the Gerald R. Ford Council.

 

A name doesn't define the council. It's members define the council.

 

DS

[eisely]

Somehow I think not.

[eisely]

The man of Steele beat my last post in. I was referring to the previous post.

[dsteele]

eisely,

 

Thanks for clearing that up. I was wondering what you disagreed with in my long post. Not that there wasn't anything to disagree with. Anyone can disagree with me anytime they would like. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if it's wrong . . . hee-hee-hee.

 

I enjoyed the Jefferson Davis Council idea. However, didn't he die in exile? I don't remember. He doesn't stand out in my mind as having the same nobility as General Lee.

 

DS

[Zahnada]

This is truly a shame. I always respected General Lee. He has always been one of my favorite generals and definitely one of the greatest generals in the history of America.

 

Did anyone else see the History Channel's show, "April 1865"? It talks about how Lee kept the war from going guerilla (I'll never learn how to spell that word). He also was not a racist. The show ends with him being the only member of a Virginian church to accept communion with a black man.

 

I really hope that Lee is not wiped out of history by this type of action. We should respect all who have fought for and against America and understand the reasons behind their actions. We must learn and remember history because it defines who we are.

[le Voyageur]

 

Being a historian, I really hate seeing how political groups with an axe to grind are rewriting history since I prefer the unvarnished truth....but, as in Georgia, and South Carolina "the times, they are a changing"

 

Thus, I would consider as a new name the James River Council...

[Twocubdad]

A note of historical accuracy:

 

Lee graduated second in his class from West Point (apologies if your comment was tounge-in-cheek). Grant, by the way graduated in the bottom third of his class.

 

Jefferson Davis died and was originally buried in New Orleans, later removed to Richmond. He was captured in Georgia within weeks of Appomattox and held in a federal military prison for two years. He was released on bail (Horace "Go west, young man" Greely posted much of the bond), and spent several years traveling abroad (including a year-and-a-half living in Canada). If you want to say he was exiled, it was certainly self-imposed. Eventually the charges of treason against him were dropped, largely for political reasons.

[scoutldr]

As an adopted Virginian, I have recently learned that my wife and sons have Confederate veterans in their ancestry. While I believe slavery was wrong and immoral, it was an accepted practice of the time. In fact, in Africa, people of color also owned and sold slaves. Those confederate soldiers fought and died for a cause they believed in and for a state they loved. How many today are willing to voluntarily die for their beliefs? Will history be any kinder to those who fought and died in the Vietnam war, or the Gulf war or the war of "Iraqi Freedom". Today's geat patriotic cause is tomorrow's immoral atrocity.

 

I'll suggest a more PC alternative..."Powhatan Council". Named after the great Native American chieftain who was the first to introduce regional governments and regional chiefs who were loyal to him(one of whom was "Pipisco" after which the scout reservation is named)...his daughter was Pocahontas, known as Matoaka, who as a teenaged girl did more diplomatically to foster relations between the Colonial invaders at Jamestown and the Native Americans than the UN will ever do.

[sst3rd]

I kept wondering if this topic would make it on board here. I'm very disappointed by the name change. Once again, Scouting is moving towards the lowest common denominator. Let's try to please everyone, and in not doing so, at least we won't have that excuse. Tonight's local TV news showed Khalfani (NAACP) gleefully talking about this Council being progressive, and I got to watch a few black Cub Scouts have their Council patches cut and ripped off of their uniforms by their leaders. It inspires much Honor. This move will NOT increase minority recruitment in this Council. If blacks want to join Scouting, it will be because of the program, not the name of the Council. The Hispanics and Asians in the Richmond area (as there are large communities) aren't involved, as their cultures have little room for Scouting (yes, there are exceptions, just not as a whole). So the executive board made a decision. Great. Love those decisions when it's the Scouters at the unit level that's bringing the program to the kids. How come we weren't involved? I guess we're just not that #$%@*& important. Names for Councils and Districts of the BSA will be offensive to some one at some time. Let's go ahead and simplify everything. Use the Council, District and Unit numbers only. I'm guessing the Stonewall Jackson Area Council, up in Staunton Virginia, are doing the same thing. The bottom line????? Money, for crying out loud.

[Eamonn]

We had a Council President, who thought that we needed a Council name change.

I have no idea why - Maybe that's what keeps the Council President awake at night?

There was some talk that the people from Fayette were upset, that we weren't Fayette Westmoreland, which would have been alphabetatically correct.

We went as far as sending out a paper asking for sugggestions, the six replies did not cause very much excitement !!

The cost of changing so many Flags, patches, letter head, did cause a stir.

Still,I'm finding it hard to put myself in the shoes of the person who is offended.

If we are to give true meaning to a Safe Haven, we have no choice but to change.

 

[evmori]

PC & Scouting don't mix. Nor should they.

 

Ed Mori

Scoutmaster

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[mk9750]

I don't want to suggest that all of the principles of the war between the states were beyond reproach. But slavery was the notable issue that gets all of the attention when discussing the reasons why southern states decided to leave the Union. This was but one example of the federal governement of the time trampling states' rights to determine their own laws as provided by the Constitution. The original reasoning of those who wrote the Constitution provided that the Federal Government was to develop only the rules and laws required to provide for the common defense and inter - state trade. The states were originally provided the right and responsiblity to make all other laws. This right and responsiblity was being eroded over the 35 years leading up to the Civil War, and, because the south was generally more rural than the north, and therefore less represented in Congress, they were powerless to stop it. Many of the laws passed despite the Constitutional promise of state self governance were more harmful to the southern states than the northern states. Prohibitions on slavery was but one example.

 

I am not suggesting that slavery is, or was every right. Those who participated in the ownership of other humans will live throughout eternity with this black mark on their souls. And it being legal at the time does not mitigate the wrong. But the south's stance before the war was in defense of the Constiution. It wasn't until they could no longer be effective protecting it that they left.

 

I am an Ohio native. I am pretty certain I have nothing in my background that causes natural sympathies with the south. But the real reason they were willing to leave was state's rights, not slavery. True, many southerners were only compelled to fight to protect their way of life, one that included enslaving human beings. But it is unfair to paint with a broad brush the leaders of the Confederacy as less then moral people, just because they fought for a cause that unfortunately included slavery.

 

(close your eyes and imagine me stepping off the soapbox here)

 

Mark