Cass tech name change???

[LEOQUEEN]

Has anyone heard anything about a councilperson proposing changing the name of Cass Tech?
Since I am a graduate, I have been getting emails from all over from people asking me about this.
I don't think this is a possibility, but want to go on record as being totally, unequivocally opposed to this.

[leland_palmer]

I mentioned it a few weeks ago when they voted to rename Washington blvd after John Conyers.

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...ington+conyers

The media picked up on it last thursday.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090...al-High-School

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t...%2Fdetail.html

[gazhekwe]

I don't like Lewis Cass, either. The Indian Removal Act swept most of the Indians out of the lower tier of Michigan, including the Detroit area. A treaty established lands for existing odenak in 1817, and by 1833, they reverted to settlement as the residents were sent to Kansas. I guess the grass quit growing and the water stopped flowing in just 16 years. Some lifetime treaty. Cass was the enforcer, not the initiator or enactor of the Act, though he assuredly approved of it.

At the same time, I don't associate Cass Tech with Lewis Cass, just the same as I don't associate my alma mater, Wayne State, with General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, who "rid the area of the red menace" by achieving the Treaty of Greenville after some bloody fighting with Tecumseh, et al. I did manage to get rid of that wording on a marker rock in the middle of the campus when I was a green freshman.

[Retroit]

Leave it to someone on the Detroit Shitty Clown Show to come up with yet another stupid idea. We can't name schools after Indians, and now we can't name them after "Indian Removers". The image of Indians as peaceful, harmless, non-territorial, utopians can only be believed by someone who has never studied history. Ignorance may be bliss, but an ignorance of history is stupid.

[R8RBOB]

The image of Indians as peaceful, harmless, non-territorial, utopians can only be believed by someone who has never studied history. Ignorance may be bliss, but an ignorance of history is stupid.

Say the same thing after I kicked down your door and throw you out of your house. You would go to war too.

[gnome]

yes, change Cass Tech, Cass Ave, Fort Wayne, Wayne County, Jefferson, Washington, Woodward, Gratiot, and Fort Street. Then change the name Detroit as it displaced the pre-1701 residents of the area.

While we're at it we should change the name of Cobo Hall, Cobo Arena, ... both holdovers from one of the last Republicans that held the title Mayor. Change the Edsel Ford freeway because his father hated jews, and the Reuther because he studied communism in the Soviet Union.

Hmm, this is great, rename everything because everything makes someone mad. Make sure you spend as much time and effort as possible on this important symbolic task. We need more symbolic tasks around here. More fist raising, head weaving, u dissing me symbolism.

yepyep, more that.

[gazhekwe]

Right, carrying political correctness to illogical extremes by focusing on one particular thing someone did that makes someone mad, while ignoring every other thing they did that didn't make those people mad, but might have made somebody else mad. Don't name something after Conyers because he had a serious lapse in judgment giving his name to a crazy person whose name would then also be associated with said landmark, road or building...

Just because somebody has an idea doesn't make it a great idea. I think a good assignment for those students would be to thoroughly research Cass and list things that he did that they could agree with on one side, and things they don't agree with on the other side. They have to look at everything, not just things that apply to Indians. I wonder how many of said students are Potawatomi descendants, those from this area who were directly impacted by the IRA of 1833. And I am also curious how Cass actually felt about his assigned task of defying the Supreme Court and removing the Cherokee. I guess he could have been OK with it, since he did not resign in protest.

[daddeeo]

Surely, there are more important things to do on city council time. If not, there may be a new name on the water ... HOBO HALL.

[EastsideQT]

The only name that needs to change in Detroit is the names of everyone on the Detroit City Council...by re-electing a whole new Council....

[stinkbug]

Isn't that cute, JoAnn Watson introduced the resolution.

Of course all these name changes will cost tax-payer money, so maybe that's why Her Roundness is so supportive of it, since she doesn't really have much invested in the tax pool.

Of course this all works for her. An ultimate race-baiter and all-around loudmouth, Jo can go around proposing completely pointless, controversial, non-nonsensical resolutions while the city's tax-roles remain in shambles and the city teeters on bankruptcy. Including a vacant lot on Stuyvesant.

The Coleman A. Young Corridor? Kind of fitting.

[LEOQUEEN]

This whole topic has started some interesting conversations. I had lunch the other day at Wasabi with a group of very insightful, mature teenagers who all attend Cass. We discussed the reasons why the issue was brought up in the first place, and the possible political ramifications. They were aware to a certain extent of Lewis Cass' history, but felt that the defining force of the school was made by the many alumni whose good works and innovative stances changed the world for the better.

[smogboy]

It makes me wonder if this goes through, are they going to change the name of Henry Ford High School, The Henry Ford, Henry Ford Hospital and anything associated with ol' Henry himself because he was a Nazi sympathizer back in the day? Interesting discussions indeed!

[Retroit]

Say the same thing after I kicked down your door and throw you out of your house. You would go to war too.

As if the Indians never committed one act of unprovoked violence. Yes, white people took land away from the Indians. But Indians also took land away from other Indians, and Indians took land away from the peaceful, harmless, non-territorial Utopian animals who had the Western Hemisphere all to themselves. Wonder what PETA would think?

As long as human population keeps increasing, people will need to consume land. Given another 10,000 years, the Indians would have gone off looking for other continents to exploit and plunder. It's just that the Europeans beat them to it.

It is very difficult to have 2 groups of people with such disparity living side by side. The Indians had to be removed. The fact that an Indian living today is more likely to be communicating over the internet than a white person is to be communicating with the use of smoke signals is a pretty clear indication of which lifestyle is more favorable.

[gumby]

It is very difficult to have 2 groups of people with such disparity living side by side. The Indians had to be removed. The fact that an Indian living today is more likely to be communicating over the internet than a white person is to be communicating with the use of smoke signals is a pretty clear indication of which lifestyle is more favorable.

Wow, I don't even know how to begin commenting on that statement.

[edgewood]

Indians ruled both American continents before the Euros committed genocide. Why so disparaging ?

[Hypestyles]

... quality of student performance/achievement should be the main concern of council.. not school names.. the dead white dudes a lot of public institutions/streets are named after is just par for the course.. obviously nobody wants to live on Hitler Avenue, but in any case...

[ct_alum]

I would be more interested in changing the name of the Bates Academy as it bothers me that a CONVICTED FELON has a DPS named after him. Same for Beckham.

[Detroitej72]

I would be more interested in changing the name of the Bates Academy as it bothers me that a CONVICTED FELON has a DPS named after him. Same for Beckham.

I suspect that wont happen since some on the clown council gleefully supported that name to honor their beloved friend.

[gazhekwe]

Wow. Retroit, I have run into more than a few racists in my time, but you take the cake. You have not progressed beyond Manifest Destiny, and I doubt you ever will. May you be left flopping in the backwater of your divine right as we pass by shaking our heads in shock and disbelief.

[Neilr]

Ct alum, if you're refering to The Beckham Academy, it's not named after Charlie Beckham [[convicted felon); but rather his late brother William Beckham who was a major Detroit civic leader. Among many other things, he served as president of New Detroit.

http://metrotimes.com/archives/story.asp?id=11595

[firstandten]

I believe that this whole name changing is on the surface silly but when you get down to it, its another attack on a school that has over the past 30 years has had its programs slowly dismantled and put into other schools by DPS admininstrators with the support of factions of the community. The result of which has weaken the national image of the school while not achieving the desired results for the rest of the system with the possible exception of Renaissance HS and the Vocational Technical Centers.

If by chance the name change did succeed, it might be for the best. The dismantling would be complete, and it would be best to let the alumni remember the school for what it was.

[Retroit]

gazhekwe,

Trails of Tears, Manifest Destiny, and Divine Right were not concepts that the Indians had to learn from the white man. The Indians were brutal to each other prior to, and after the arrival of, the white man. It is inherent in human nature to defend and acquire territory.

It's not a matter of me being racist. Quite the contrary, actually. I'm saying we are both the same - good and bad. The biggest problem with white man - Indian relationships was their difference in lifestyles due to their unequal levels of civilization. 10,000 years ago, white people lived like Indians of 200 years ago; and given another 10,000 years of isolation, the Indians would probably be living like whites of 200 years ago. I'm not saying that whites are superior to Indians; I'm saying we are the same. Europeans [[and Middle Easterners and Orientals) simply had advantages due to geography, natural resources, greater populations, etc. that enabled them to develop earlier. The fact that Indians today are living quite capably in a white man's world instead of their former Indian world, and the fact that Indians have fought bravely in the defense of "white man's America" is proof that there is no racial difference.

[ghettopalmetto]

Rosa Parks Technical High School, anyone?

[edgewood]

Mother Watson Tech ?

[Locke09]

Here's a thought. Stop naming things after people. All people are fallible and if you look closely enough you can find something about anyone that someone will find objectional. Or at least wait about 500 years to make sure the person has been properly vetted.