Patterico's Pontifications

2/21/2010

“Negrohead Mountain” Is Renamed

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:33 pm



The L.A. Times reports that a peak in the Santa Monica mountains named “Negrohead Mountain” has been renamed as “Ballard Mountain.”

Harry Reid could not be reached for comment.

43 Responses to ““Negrohead Mountain” Is Renamed”

  1. I approve this renaming. Mr. Henry Ballard was a light skinned negro with no trace of a …

    Ah screw it. It’s just too cliched and hacky to continue.

    Sock puppet off.

    Harry Reid (5b61ec)

  2. Isn’t “Santa Monica” way too Xtianist a name – should we not campaign for it to be renamed to the “Hope’n’Change Range” ? (In honor of The One)

    Alasdair (205079)

  3. how much money is it going to cost to change all the maps, signs and documents where the original name is used, and who’s going to pay for it all?

    (besides “us”, i mean…. %-)

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  4. AS one of the follicly challenged, I find the name of Mt. Baldy to be offensive.

    Also the phrase “a bald faced lie” makes me feel persecuted.

    I demand that these all change to suit my felt needs.

    Steve B (5eacf6)

  5. There’s a country in Africa you can’t even talk about in polite company unless you totally distort the pronunciation to the point you sound like you’ve taken a few Qualudes…
    Just look at a map of Africa, see where Algeria and Libya meet?? Its the country below there, yep, its the N-word, with only 1 “G”…
    How’d that get by the NAACP?

    Frank

    Frank Drackman (7ee2ca)

  6. My question is: is the mountain clean and articulate?

    the friendly grizzly (cf0393)

  7. When will they demand that the word black be erased from memory?

    BT (74cbec)

  8. “Santa Monica” reminds me of Bill Clinton at Christmas time.

    Icy Texan (843437)

  9. “A black mark on your record?”

    “He blacked out.”

    Anything which portrays black as a negative is offensive, and must be purged.

    Steve B (5eacf6)

  10. You can’t fix stupid.

    bill-tb (541ea9)

  11. When are we going to do something about the Grand Tetons?

    nk (db4a41)

  12. Well, obviously they couldn’t call it “Blackhead Mountain.”

    Kevin Murphy (d1559d)

  13. bill-tb wrote:

    You can’t fix stupid.

    But we spend so much money trying!

    The impoverished Dana (3e4784)

  14. Mr Murphy: Only because it didn’t want to be called a zit.

    The snarky Dana (3e4784)

  15. nk asked:

    When are we going to do something about the Grand Tetons?

    When the mammarily challenged become an Accredited Victim Group.

    The politically correct Dana (3e4784)

  16. I hope they stay far away from Intercourse, PA.

    My wife once made me stop in the middle of Intercourse so she could get a pretzel. That was really frustrating.

    Amphipolis (b120ce)

  17. dana, that’s why I said “obviously”

    Kevin Murphy (d1559d)

  18. I hope they stay far away from Intercourse, PA.

    My wife once made me stop in the middle of Intercourse so she could get a pretzel. That was really frustrating.

    You should have just driven to Blue Balls, Pa!!!!

    BT (74cbec)

  19. Hmmm…

    Was Ballard a negro?

    mojo (8096f2)

  20. John Negroponte could not be reached for comment.

    Subotai (353b5c)

  21. “Santa Monica Mountains”???
    Must be way too many PhD’s in the area…
    That’s the only way those rock-piles could be considered “mountains”.

    AD - RtR/OS! (93f531)

  22. In all seriousness, I can understand re-naming this mountain. I don’t consider it to be an outrageously outrageous indictment of the “racism inherent in the system” or anything goofy like that.

    But I can see why they renamed it. If my parents gave me the name “Harry Ball” I’d probably change it too, when I came of age.

    I hereby denounce myself.

    Ed (5b61ec)

  23. When are they going to rename the White Mountains?

    How about Ute mountain?

    I think they gave up on purging the west of any reference to “squaw” (which I guess is a phonetic reproduction of c**t)

    I understand that times have changed:
    Negro Bill Canyon needs to go

    Chinaman’s Gulch too.

    SteveG (909b57)

  24. Good. What is now left is to take out the word “Niger” from Nigeria. “Black” from Blacksmith, Blackmail, blackamoor, blackboy, blackbutt, blackout, black eye, blacklist, blackberry, black belt, black bird, blackboard, blackball, blackcock… All in the spirit of “righting the wrongs”. Eh?

    Nigerian Observer (08ca41)

  25. This has been going on for many years, I know of some names that were changed in the 80’s. A Jap road in the Beaumont, TX area was changed, other names of points and such on the Gulf of Mexico were also changed. We’ve been smoothing over our language to be total PC for a very long time.

    Ruth H (eaaf45)

  26. Time to get busy with the *ahem* whiteout

    http://www.brainygeography.com/topics/n/negro.html

    SteveG (909b57)

  27. We have a Negro Bar here in Sacramento.

    There was a tiny move toward renaming it at one time but cost of the signage, lack of outrage from supposedly persecuted parties, and a general sense of historic significance (it’s named after black 49’ers [Jerry Rice, Rodger Craig, Feddie Solomon] I think – don’t quote me without checking) conspired to nip it in the bud.

    papertiger (894e4f)

  28. “Harry Reid could not be reached for comment”

    Are you joking? Reid describes why the country is ready for the candidate he supports and you and yours defend Jared Taylor.
    There’s simply no comparison, so please for your own sake, stop pretending.

    Sandy Levinson would call it the stench of fascism.
    http://balkin.blogspot.com/2010/02/stench-of-fascism.html

    seltzer (2dae0e)

  29. seltzer – Repent your lies.

    The power of Christ compels you.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  30. Always enjoyed Kaye Ballard, especially in The Mothers In Law. Glad to see they finally got around to honoring her.

    Matador (176445)

  31. Comment by papertiger — 2/22/2010 @ 4:24 pm

    When they talk about “black 49’ers”, they aren’t talking about football players, but gold-miners.

    AD - RtR/OS! (93f531)

  32. Drocks @28, the Breitbart vid is on this site.

    And christ has no power to compel me, or you for that matter. He was a landsman and a wise man, but no more. Still you might want to follow his example.

    But I doubt you will.

    seltzer (2dae0e)

  33. Barry Levinson is a light-skinned person without a Negro dialect. I have no problem with him.

    nk (db4a41)

  34. Moreover, I think that Barry Levinson would agree with me about people on bail, not convicted of anything, needing a government bail bondsman’s permission to exercise their freedom of assembly and speech.

    nk (db4a41)

  35. Before I switched to EL, I was a geology major in college. An outcropping of dark rock was commonly known as a ni**erhead. I heard geology professors in the CA college system use this term in the late 70s.

    Sure enough, I looked deeper and according to a site called HipHopWired what the LA Times doesn’t tell you is that the name was changed from Ni**erhead Mtn to Negrohead Mtn in the 1960s.

    http://hiphopwired.com/2010/02/22/california%E2%80%99s-negrohead-mountain-renamed/

    Offensive? you bet but you can still find it used today:

    http://dbforms.ga.gov.au/pls/www/geodx.strat_units.sch_full?wher=stratno=14131

    harkin (f92f52)

  36. They renamed “Ni**er Slough” to “Dominguez Slough” out on the LA River… is that a net win for Hispanics?

    I am all for getting n***** out of the public lexicon.

    But if you go through the list I found and linked, you will find that a lot of the links that have “Negro” in them are just Spanish language for black… Cuchillo Negro Mtn just means black knife mountain and has zero to do with people of African origin

    SteveG (909b57)

  37. #31

    Have Harry Reid speak as much as possible in his bid to be reelected.

    Oh… and please tell me WWJD with a “cobra”?

    SteveG (909b57)

  38. When I read the stories of how places came to be named, I often feel sadness.
    It is clear though that some people meant no offense, and often none was taken… it is what it is… but still, it is hard here in year 2010 to read stories that contain so much of what we now recognize as prejudice

    SteveG (909b57)

  39. Am I the only one who caught this in the last line of the LAT article:
    “Historians believe that Ballard and his family were fleeing growing segregationist polices in the city.”

    What are “polices”?

    AD - RtR/OS! (93f531)

  40. Oh… and please tell me WWJD with a “cobra”?

    step out on the town looking sharp.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  41. but still, it is hard here in year 2010 to read stories that contain so much of what we now recognize as prejudice

    what if “what we now recognize as prejudice” is simply a product of a culture that is just as, if not more so, discriminatory as the one it is sitting in judgment of?

    who gave you the moral authority to sit in judgment, and by what right do you decide for the rest of us how history should be viewed?

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  42. I wish Harry Reid could never be reached for comment… but, besides that…

    I read the articles and this seems perfectly legitimate to me. It seems that it was named after him, but using terms that today are degrading. I think it fitting to apply the man’s name to the place he made famous and I congratulate his family for their successful efforts.

    The man sounds like a hardworking pioneer, despite the extra hardships he may have experienced in that long ago era.

    BC (bac0f5)

  43. Comment by AD – RtR/OS! — 2/22/2010 @ 5:32 pm

    Ok that makes sense, because I remember it being Negro Bar long before Jerry Rice was on the 49’ers.

    papertiger (fb6ec3)


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