A bill aimed at establishing an state advisory board to facilitate renaming place names in Maine had a public hearing Tuesday afternoon by the Maine Legislature’s State and Local Government Committee.
The bill, LD 1667, comes after Maine’s taxpayer-funded Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous and Tribal Populations (PCRITP) held a webinar in early January on “problematic” place names in the state.
[RELATED: Taxpayer-Funded “Place Justice Project” Bemoans “Problematic” Place Names in Maine…]
The state racial equity commission paid the nonprofit organization Atlantic Black Box $132,804 in taxpayer funds in order to research and give a 30 minute presentation on the “problematic” place names identified by the organization for a possible renaming.
LD 1667, sponsored by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland), would establish an eleven-member “State Names Advisory Board” to serve as a liaison to federal agencies regarding recommendations on renaming place names.
[RELATED: Maine Racial Equity Commission Banned White People from Talking at Lewiston Public Meeting…]
The original version of the bill established a racial quota for the advisory board, requiring one member to be African American and another to be from a federally-recognized Indian nation.
Under an amendment presented by Speaker Talbot Ross Tuesday, the racial quotas were removed and replaced with language directing the appointment of certain board members recommended by a federally-recognized Indian nation, and a member recommended by a “state-based statewide organization promoting civil rights that has racial justice or racial equity as its primary mission.”
The proposed advisory board would be directed to “take whatever reasonable actions are required to complete a change in the offensive name,” and would required to meet at least six times per year.
Talbot Ross’ amendment states that the advisory board may hold public hearings on selecting a new name, and directs the board to develop a “public engagement campaign” to educate the public about the history of the place names and the renaming process.
“Offensive place names, such as Negro Island or s-word mountain, are vestiges of a history of violence, exclusion, expropriation, marginalization, and dehumanization, but they have lost none of their potency of the decades and centuries,” Talbot Ross said Tuesday.
“Racial slurs inscribed on Maine’s landscapes and maps perpetuate the sense that Black and Indigenous people are still not safe or welcome in these areas,” she said.
Talbot Ross expressed her frustration to the Committee that a previous law aimed at changing offensive place names spearheaded by her father Gerald Talbot in 1977 “had never been effectively enforced.”
The House Speaker said her bill would achieve three goals: creating a “diverse board” to advise on name change petitions to the federal government, developing clear name change guidance, and requiring community input on renaming.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="25298 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=25298">4 Comments
I expect the “diverse board” would be represented by the statistical demographics of the Maine population.
Rachel Talbot Ross…LLBean shoplifter, parking garage harasser, sees racism everywhere, even in the ice cream isle. She’s got too much free time on her hands for anything worth fighting for.
My answer to this is – GROW UP!!!!
Racism is being brought to you by those people who hate WHIITE AMERICANS for no other reason than their skin color (unfortunately a lot of these people are also white). Ask the majority of Mainers and they will tell you that there is no racism here, we accept people for WHO they are not WHAT they are.
Narrator Meadow Dibble says the town names “normalize white supremacy and violence against BIPOC communities” without a single example, any explanation or objective proof. It’s only seen “through the lens of racial equity”. I guess I don’t have that disorder because I don’t see it.
How did they arrive at these conclusions? They were given $132,804 to do so, I guess that’s a pretty good incentive to find “problematic place names”. Well, the taxpayers will be burdened with $132,804 for the “research and 30 minute presentation on ‘problematic’ place names”. It looks like even more money will be doled out for the legislature spending time on this, establishing a “State Names Advisory Board”, with specific appointment practices (does it sound like cronyism?), developing a “public engagement campaign” to “educate the public about the history of the place names and the renaming process”. Can we expect a disinformation campaign? Will it cost more money?
For example, I doubt the town name Paris, Maine “normalize[s] white supremacy and violence against BIPOC communities”. Has there been an epidemic of “white supremacy and violence against BIPOC communities” in Paris, Maine because of the name “Paris”? I doubt it.
Are there really “federal agencies regarding recommendations on renaming place names”?
Seems to me it’s an expensive solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. They must be joking. It is like reading a very expensive book of humor, isn’t it?