We Are Who We Honor

Gabe wondered what I thought about efforts to rename Sacramento's Goethe Middle School:

The problem, the women say, is that Charles Matthias Goethe (1875-1966) was an unapologetic white supremacist whose views insult the children attending the school named in his honor.

...Demographically, Goethe Middle School is 32 percent Latino, 30 percent Asian, 27 percent African American, 5 percent white, and 6 percent other. Its mission statement celebrates "our diverse, multicultural society."

It's always troubling, of course, to rename streets and buildings that already have long histories. It must be particularly troubling to people who attended the school. Nevertheless:

During their brainstorming sessions, Aslan said, one point of contention emerged: Where do you draw the line? Many historic figures, honored in the past, have some ugly baggage by modern standards.

"Some people asked: At what point do we have the right to intervene and whimsically change the name of institutions?" Aslan said. "That's a valid point. But we think this is a special case -- this change serves the very children who were targeted by Mr. Goethe. This isn't a major historic figure we're talking about. This was someone who bought his way in."

"We're not on some kind of a crusade to change school names," Williams said. "Just this one."

So the effort is limited, and I don't see the harm in it. And with regards to Mr. Goethe:

Wanda Williams studied the portrait and shook her head.

"He proved money can buy anything," she said. "It can buy silence. It can buy blindness. But not forever."