Small state, smaller racial idea

It’s always painful to admit ignorance, so it hurts when I say I had no idea that the full name of the state of Rhode Island is “the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”

I’ve been there, had friends who lived there and showed me the Gilded Age mansions of the rich who spent their summers in Newport. 

The official name is in the process of being changed, because of the word “plantations.”

In the report of the “why,” the story erroneously references the name’s “connection to slavery.”

The name has no connection to slavery, but the state does. 

Rhode Island’s Democratic Governor Gina Raimondo signed an executive order to change the name, even though 10 years ago, 78% of voters rejected the name change.

“Many of the State’s residents find it painful that a word so closely associated with slavery should appear in the official name of the State,” Raimondo wrote. “The pain that this association causes to some of our residents should be of concern to all Rhode Islanders and we should do everything in our power to ensure that all communities can take pride in our State.”

So let’s cancel the word “plantation” because it triggers some people. 

Here I admit another ignorance — that although Rhode Island abolished slavery in 1652, the law was not enforced and Rhode Island was active in the slave trade. For a long time.

The governor’s executive order makes no mention of the state’s actual involvement with slavery. 

That means it is a meaningless placebo, one that obscures the real truth.

It reminds me of the aide to the mayor of Washington D.C., who was forced to resign for using the word “niggardly,” which means stingy. He lost his job (he was later rehired) because of howls of the ignorant who thought he had used the N-word.

Raimondo’s executive order is only step one. Rhode Island will again put it to a vote, and the result might be different this time because America is engaged in a massive self-purification in favor of  racial justice and this name change might be confused with actual change.

It would certainly give the students at Brown University something to do with their free time.

If the bill passes, will it stop there?

Rhode Island’s nickname is the Ocean State.

How were slaves transported from Africa to the Western Hemisphere? The ocean. 

What if, in the words of the executive order, “residents find it painful that a word so closely associated with slavery” is still used?

It’s got to go. It’s back to, “We are small, really small. Tiny, you might say.”

The ignorant and the PC are on the march.