I really hate this story, and all stories like it. I hope you do too.
In a perfect and perfectly disgraceful breach of the First Niggardly Principle, the Centennial School District in southeast Portland will be excising “Lynch” from three schools before the beginning of this school year: Lynch Meadows, Lynch Wood, and Lynch View elementary schools. The schools were named to honor the family that originally donated land for the the schools to be built upon over a century ago. What, however, is the obligation to appreciate and honor those who selflessly seek to assist public education, compared to the need to cater to those whose education was inadequate? Nothing, apparently. Superintendent Paul Coakley explains that “many newer families coming into the district associate the name with America’s violent racial history.”
Well, that should settle it, then! Why burden these narrow-minded and easily-triggered products of the victim culture with facts, knowledge and perspective?
More from Coakley: “There were an increasing amount of questions and some complaints from families of color around the name…there is no connection between the Lynch family and the practice associated with the term” but the name has still “been a disruption for some students.”
Here’s a creative alternative solution: educate them. How about that? Is that too challenging for the students? For Portland’s schools? From Wordorigins.com:
“This US slang term meaning to summarily execute someone by hanging comes from a Captain William Lynch (1742-1820) of Pittsylvania, Virginia. In 1780, Lynch led a group of vigilantes, combating crime in the Pittsylvania region. Lynch’s preferred punishment was flogging, and the early uses of the term lynch law did not imply hanging. Lynch law first appears in the writings of an Andrew Ellicott from 1811:
Captain Lynch just mentioned was the author of the Lynch laws so well known and so frequently carried into effect some years ago in the southern States in violation of every principle of justice and jurisprudence.
The verb to lynch dates to at least 1835, when it appears in the St. Louis Bulletin of 21 October:
They were soundly flogged, or in other words, Lynched, and set on the opposite side of the river, with the positive assurance that, if they were again found with the limits of the state of Missouri, their fate would be, death by hanging.
There are many different tales of the origin, each promulgating a different Lynch as the genesis of the word. But it is clear from the evidence that William Lynch is the origin. Some of the others are worth mentioning though.
There was a Judge Charles Lynch (1736-96) who presided over a court in Pittsylvania, Virginia (again) that held trials of Tory sympathizers during the American Revolution. But his was a formally constituted court and not mob justice. It is not known whether he is related to William Lynch, although it seems likely that he was.
Some contend that the word is a reference to an incident in Galway, Ireland in 1493. According to local lore, the mayor of Galway, James Lynch FitzStephen, hanged his own son for murder in that year. Whether or not the incident actually took place is a matter of debate, but what is not in question is that this incident is not the origin of the word. There is no evidence linking the word lynch to this Galway incident.”
Wikipedia lists well over a hundred prominent figures named Lynch, including public servants, artists, athletes, professionals and more. (For some reason it omitted Tim Lynch, who co-founded The American Century Theater with me.) There is no just or sensible reason why one individual named Lynch should make the name a taboo. Funny, I don’t recall the NAACP protesting when Loretta Lynch was appointed Attorney General.
The First Niggardly Principle, named after the infamous incident in which a white Washington D.C. government worker was fired for using the word “niggardly” in the work place (he was later re-hired), goes like this:
“No one should be criticized or penalized because someone takes racial, ethnic, religious or other offense at their conduct or speech due to the ignorance, bias or misunderstanding by the offended party.”
In some respects, what the Portland schools are doing to the Lynch family is even worse that what the ignorant D.C. government officials did to the employee who dared to have a 12th grade vocabulary. (Niggardly (nig·gard·ly) adjective: not generous; stingy. synonyms: cheap, mean, miserly, parsimonious, close-fisted, penny-pinching, cheeseparing, grasping,
in a stingy or meager manner.) At least the ignoramuses in D.C. sincerely believed that the employee’s language was racist. The Portland cowards know that the name of the school’s has no fair racial connotations, and are acting as if it does anyway.
Educators have chosen censorship, political correctness and ignorance over fairness and fact.
Ethics Alarms 
WOW!!
And there’s Chateau Lynch-Bages in Pauillac. Extremely distressing.
Shouldn’t this post also be included in the “Idiocy in Public Schools” heap?
Yeah, but that’s a library, not a file.
The world is going nucking futs.
Sadly, so true.
What do you mean going?
Funny, I was just at a fancy thrift store, staffed by a lovely bunch of elder ladies, that uses its proceeds to clothe needy school kids in Oregon. I mention this because instead of spending money & time trying to placate parents/staff who can’t be bothered to be grateful to the Lynch family, I’d rather see attention paid to *actual* kids who don’t even have clothes for school.
Trust me when I say the social justice set in Portland is far better at finding “problems” of offence than actually doing anything useful. This is just another example.
Offense I meant. I forgot I’m not British.
Another pc weenie administrator in Portland, Schools. Surprise, surprise. He’s probably planning to establish “safe spaces” in his district for those offended by “hurtful” microagressions.
The Superintendent is African American. The school board members are “mostly white.” They all agreed with the Superintendent’s proposal. http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2017/07/lynch_elementary_schools_will.html
While I agree with the post and love Jack’s categorization – indeed, the enshrinement – of the Niggardly Principles, this is in fact nothing new.
Early in 1973 – a time of great racial tension in the U.S. – I was attending THE Ohio State University as a freshman (I hated it there and transferred to a college back east for sophomore year).
The College of Physics, which housed the Department of Astronomy, announced a lecture entitled “Are Black Holes Excitable?”
Now, I was a naive biology major at the time and had yet to learn how biology, chemistry and physics can collide with one another in such a catastrophic way that it could generate a guy with a BA in Psychology, as the fastest way out. But I DID learn a bit about how ignorance, racial grievance and media work.
The Black Students Association protested vehemently, and the lecture was cancelled. More than fifty years ago, y’all.
Also from the Niggardly Files, and also about black holes: https://ethicsalarms.com/2010/06/12/breach-of-duty-hallmark-capitulates-to-the-race-card/
A nearly annual frat boy prank at Hamilton College during my era back before electricity, probably during hazing season, was to remove the “G” from the Black Angus restaurant sign down on Route 5.
I’d love to see a 4WD made in Australia (hell, I’d be pretty happy to see almost anything made in Australia atm!) and given the model name ‘Waler’.
I’m pretty sure enough twats would mistake it for Whaler to fill the internet for a week!
Yes, I have been awarded a spoon for best stirrer before today.
The Waler was an hardy Australian bred horse prized by stockmen and made famous as the mount of Australia’s ‘Light Horse Brigade’ (mounted infantry) in the Middle East during the First World War.
I’d love to see a 4WD made in Australia (hell, I’d be pretty happy to see almost anything made in Australia atm!) and given the model name ‘Waler’.
I’m pretty sure enough twats would mistake it for Whaler to fill the internet for a week!
Yes, I have been awarded a spoon for best stirrer before today.
The Waler was an hardy Australian bred horse prized by stockmen and made famous as the mount of Australia’s ‘Light Horse’ (mounted infantry) in the Middle East during the First World War.
I guess Boston Whaler, which manufactures recreational, commercial, and rescue runabout-type boats, should look for a new name. Wouldn’t want all those snowflakes to get triggered.
I suppose referring to a key decision or law as the “linchpin” of a doctrine or a policy is right out too. It would be funny if it wasn’t so stupid and hypersensitive.
In good old Willimantic, CT, there was a man named Seth Chauncey Hooker, who opened a hotel in the early 20th Century. By happen stance, it stayed open into the 21st Century, having fallen into hard times decades earlier. It developed quite a reputation, and to be polite, the Hooker Hotel lived up to a rather an unsavory interpretation of its name.
The hotel fell into receivership, and the bank manager changed the name to the Seth Chauncey Hotel to try to spruce up its reputation (He also implemented real tenant screenings, addressed maintenance issues and repaired door locks, and worked with residents to engage with police to report illegal activity. The name change was a small part of a real effort to improve the living situation for its semi-permanent residents.
It kept its history, but addressed a real branding issue (people thought it was a nickname reflecting its services, not realizing that was the actual name of the establishment). It then shut down altogether, but that is moral luck.
With the schools, there is a problem, but presumably not one of murder-by-hanging from the jungle gyms. Renaming the schools does not meaningfully address any issue. Only education and community engagement will meaningfully address the unrest.
I wonder if Loretta Lynch is going to change her name.