The president of San Francisco’s board of education wants to remove George Washington and Thomas Jefferson from the names of all taxpayer-funded schools in the city because the forefathers owned slaves.
The school board president, Matt Haney, wants to rename any school associated with anyone who owned any slaves or who is otherwise a “problematic” deceased white male, reports the San Francisco Examiner.
Haney wants the schools to be named after black people homosexuals, lesbians and cross dressers instead.
The school president came up with the notion of rechristening schools named after slave owners and other undesirables on Sunday after he absorbed a sermon at Third Baptist Church, a predominantly black church in San Francisco.
The sermon was about second-string San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s much-ballyhooed protest of the national anthem. (RELATED: Colin Kaepernick Wears Socks Depicting Cops As Pigs)
After the sermon, Haney messianically took to Facebook and called for Washington High’s name to be changed to Maya Angelou High School (partly because Angelou attended the school).
“We need to have a conversation about this,” Haney said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Especially at George Washington High School. We have school names in San Francisco that are not relevant or meaningful or inspire pride.”
“Most of our schools are going to be fine with the names that they have but there are a handful of schools where at least the question should be brought up,” Haney also said, according to the Examiner.
“I don’t think the goal is to condemn people who died a long time ago,” he added, as he condemned the people. “The question is whether there might be a more appropriate, meaningful name.”
Schools in the San Francisco Unified School District that would be affected include those named after Washington, Jefferson, James Monroe and Francis Scott Key — all slave owners.
The issue of renaming schools is “tricky,” Haney said, according to the Chronicle. But it’s important, he insisted, because “slavery was America’s original sin.”
Haney says he will introduce a school board resolution urging schools he believes to be sinfully named to consider name changes.
Haney said his social media pages — he’s on Twitter and Facebook — have been inundated with criticism this week.
“You –hole!!!!!!!!!” someone who self-identified as Mr. Mitchell wrote.
“This is the most ridiculous, politically correct farce I’ve heard,” read another comment.
“You don’t mess with George Washington,” Washington High substitute teacher Jan Padover observed.
Haney is up for re-election for his school board seat in November.
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