True Left

Continuing from:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/name-decolonization/msg10984/#msg10984

now:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tear-jerking-ad-celebrates-beauty-164043584.html

“For the AAPI community, belonging starts with a name. Join us to celebrate and learn AAPI names,” the caption read.

The ad follows the story of a Korean American girl named Yeong Joo Park. As her mother holds Yeong Joo as a newborn, the mom explains why she bestowed the name upon her daughter. She also warns of how some may not understand Yeong Joo’s name but how others will make the effort to learn and connect.

“Your name will make you feel different, like they don’t want to get to know you. But I promise there will be those who try,” the mother tells Yeong Joo.

The narrative fast-forwards to Yeong Joo as a young girl. She meets a friend on the bus who will pronounce her name and a soccer coach who mispronounces it but is willing to learn.

“Do you remember what Yeong Joo means?” the mother explains. “It means ‘strong and resilient’ because I know you will be.”

The tear-jerking ad certainly had people on TikTok in their feelings.

“I don’t have an English name and keep the Korean name my parents gave me. This campaign is beautiful,” someone commented.

“Got me over here crying. Love the Korean representation,” another said.

“Best ad ever. Made me feel comfortable about my Asian name,” a person wrote.

With each renaming, the US becomes less Western and more American:

https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/news/22022.htm

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, WY – Yellowstone National Park announced today that Mount Doane is now named First Peoples Mountain. Today’s announcement follows a 15-0 vote affirming the change by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN), the federal body responsible for maintaining uniform geographic name usage throughout the federal government.

First Peoples Mountain is a 10,551-foot peak within Yellowstone National Park east of Yellowstone Lake in the southeastern portion of the park. The peak was previously named after Gustavus Doane, a key member of the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition in 1870 prior to Yellowstone becoming America’s first national park. 

Research has shown that earlier that same year (1870), Doane led an attack, in response to the alleged murder of a white fur trader, on a band of Piegan Blackfeet. During what is now known as the Marias Massacre, at least 173 American Indians were killed, including many women, elderly Tribal members and children suffering from smallpox. Doane wrote fondly about this attack and bragged about it for the rest of his life.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/23/opinion/jlo-jennifer-lopez-ben-affleck.html

Why It Matters That J-Lo Is Now J-Aff
...
given the cringe-y history behind the practice, a woman taking her husband’s last name feels to me like a submission — a gesture that doesn’t say “I belong with him” so much as “I belong to him.” And at this fraught moment for feminism in America, a woman like the former Jennifer Lopez deciding to change her name feels especially dispiriting.

Sure, taking your husband’s name might be a way of saying “this is for keeps.” But it is also a gesture inextricably rooted in peak patriarchy
...
Dr. Rachael Robnett, an associate professor in the psychology department at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, told me in a telephone interview that it reflects “men’s greater status and power in relationships, and also in society.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surname#Family_name_discrimination_against_women

In England and cultures derived from there, there has long been a tradition for a woman to change her surname upon marriage from her birth name to her husband's family name. (See Maiden and married names.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_and_married_names

"the custom of calling women Mrs. John This and Mrs. Tom That and colored men Sambo and Zip Coon, is founded on the principle that white men are lords of all."[34][35] Later, when addressing the judiciary committee of the state legislature of New York in 1860 in a speech called "A Slave's Appeal", she stated in part, "The negro [slave] has no name. He is Cuffy Douglas or Cuffy Brooks, just whose Cuffy he may chance to be. The woman has no name. She is Mrs. Richard Roe or Mrs. John Doe, just whose Mrs. she may chance to be."[36][37]

Similarly:

Russia
There is a widespread, though not universal, custom for a newly married wife to adopt the husband's family name.

In contrast:

China
Traditionally, unlike in Anglophon Western countries, a married woman keeps her name unchanged, without adopting her husband's surname.[66] ... Amongst the Chinese diaspora overseas, especially in Southeast Asia, women rarely legally adopt their spouse's surname.
...
Iran
It became mandatory in 1918 to use surnames in Iran, and only in this time, the heads of families had the right to choose their family members' (including the wife) surname. It is stated in the article four of the law on Civil Registration in 1925, that "Everybody should choose his/her own name. The wife... maintains her family name that was called by."

so once again we confirm that Western civilization is more, not less, sexist than non-Western civilizations. Indeed Western colonialism is to blame for increasing the sexism among those whom they colonized, for example:

Hong Kong
Due to British influence, some people in Hong Kong have also adopted the tradition of women changing their English last name

As for the US, those who resisted are the Americans (as opposed to Westerners), as they are in effect calling for the US to be less like Britain/Russia/etc., and more like China/Iran/etc.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Stone_League

Its motto is "A wife should no more take her husband's name than he should hers.
...
The League became so well known that a new term, Lucy Stoner, came into common use, meaning anyone who advocates that a wife be allowed to keep and use her own name. This term was eventually included in dictionaries.[6] Women who choose not to use their husbands' surnames have also been called Lucy Stoners.[7]

Related:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/colonial-era/colonialism-and-sexism/

Finally more attention here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/welcome-to-aotearoa-the-campaign-to-decolonize-new-zealands-name-11658914200

The first European contact with indigenous Māori ended with four sailors killed and a hasty retreat. But it led to an identity for this South Pacific country: Nieuw Zeeland in Dutch, or New Zealand when it later became part of the British Empire.

Now, some lawmakers want New Zealanders to drop a name that harks back to an era of colonization and adopt another—Aotearoa, a Māori word referring to the clouds that indigenous oral history says helped early Polynesian navigators make their way here.
...
In New Zealand, the issue is coming to a head because a petition to rename the country Aotearoa—pronounced ‘au-te-a-ro-uh’—garnered more than 70,000 signatures and will be considered by a parliamentary committee that could recommend a vote in Parliament, put it to a referendum or take no further action.

“It’s a realignment to where we are as a nation,” said Rawiri Waititi, co-leader of the Māori Party, a small party in Parliament that supported the petition. “It’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Over several decades, Aotearoa has become more common in everyday speech. It appears on bank notes and passports, and is often in government documents, either alone or combined with New Zealand. When the U.S. and New Zealand issued a joint statement following a meeting of their leaders in May, it referred to Jacinda Ardern as prime minister of Aotearoa New Zealand. Māori is one of three official languages in New Zealand but fluency has plummeted, a legacy of colonial-era policies that restricted its use.

Ms. Ardern welcomes the wider use of Aotearoa, but a formal name change isn’t being explored by the government, a spokeswoman for the prime minister said.
...
Opinion polls suggest advocates of a new identity face an uphill battle. More than half of respondents want to keep New Zealand, according to one survey by market-research company Colmar Brunton. Still, Aotearoa alone or Aotearoa New Zealand command about a combined 40% support.

Everyone who wants to keep "New Zealand" should be treated the same way as those Dutch sailors mentioned in the first paragraph.

Those sailors were led by:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel_Tasman

Abel Janszoon Tasman (Dutch: [ˈɑbəl ˈjɑnsoːn ˈtɑsmɑn]; 1603 – 10 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first known European explorer to reach New Zealand and the islands of Fiji and Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania).

which reminds us that "Tasmania" also needs to have its name changed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmania#Toponymy

In the reconstructed Palawa kani language, the main island of Tasmania is called lutruwita,[25]
...
Tasmania is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642.

https://news.yahoo.com/patrick-henry-high-mpls-name-002700943.html

Patrick Henry High School will be getting a new name, after the Minneapolis school board on Tuesday directed the school community to begin the name change process.

The school board's school names advisory committee, which was formed in 2020, had recommended a name change for the North Side high school because Patrick Henry — an 18th-century Virginia politician and leading proponent of independence before the Revolutionary War — owned enslaved people.

According to the resolution approved Tuesday, "students, staff, and community members recognize the need for a school name that better represents the values of the community."
...
Two other schools in the district, Sheridan Elementary and Jefferson Elementary, were respectively renamed Las Estrellas and Ella Baker this year. The process to change those names began in 2020.

Sheridan was named for Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan, a Civil War officer who led the relocation of Native Americans off the Great Plains and encouraged the extermination of buffalo. Jefferson was named for the founding father and third U.S. president who owned slaves.

Keep up the good work!

Rightists will never get it:

Some school alumni vocally opposed the name change, arguing that it amounted to rewriting history

No. Rewriting history would be, for example, covering up the fact that Henry was a slave owner. We are doing the opposite.

We sorted this out ages ago:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/name-decolonization/msg5614/#msg5614

I suspect that the name Turtle Island is a recent innovation masquerading as an ancient name rather than something authentically predating the colonial era. If Turtle Island refers to North America only, that would require (in order for "Island" to be accurate) North America to be separated from South America by seawater, which was not the case prior to the Panama Canal (built during the colonial era). But if Turtle Island refers to North and South America combined, there is no indication that any pre-colonial travellers journeyed the entire circumference of the landmass, which is what would be required to ascertain that it is indeed an island. On these grounds I rarely use this name.

Another country that needs renaming which we had previously missed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua_and_Barbuda

The island of Antigua was originally called Wadadli by Arawaks and is locally known by that name today; Caribs possibly called Barbuda Wa'omoni. Christopher Columbus, while sailing by in 1493, may have named it Santa Maria la Antigua, after an icon in the Spanish Seville Cathedral. The "bearded" of Barbuda is thought to refer either to the male inhabitants of the island, or the bearded fig trees present there.[19]

I was reminded of it by this article:

https://us.yahoo.com/news/caribbean-nation-vote-removing-king-101858703.html

Antigua and Barbuda, a commonwealth country and former colony of the British empire, will hold a referendum on becoming a republic and removing King Charles III as the head of state, its prime minister announced.

Prime Minister Gaston Browne told the UK's ITV: "This is a matter that has to be taken to a referendum for the people to decide."

"This is not an act of hostility or any difference between Antigua and Barbuda and the monarchy, but it is the final step to complete that circle of independence, to ensure that we are truly a sovereign nation."

No, removing Charles as head of state is not even close to the "final step". You have to rename the country itself. Also, you have to stop doing uniquely Western things like "hold a referendum" and "becoming a republic". Why not re-install pre-colonial monarchies?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacique

The Taíno word kasike descends from the Taíno word kassiquan, which means "to keep house".[5]
...
Most importantly, the kasike's word was law and they exercised this power to oversee a sophisticated government, finely involved with all aspects of social existence.[9]

Additionally, Browne needs to stop wearing Western clothes: