>I was pointing out the tiresome tilting at windmills that virtue signaling is. Don't you think that renaming a street in the name of social justice is a bit of a stretch? I can think of a million more things that are actually important that mostly get lip service.

Complaining about them renaming a street is just as stupid as fighting for the street to be renamed. Caring about this in any capacity is equally pointless. You can't talk about "tilting at windmills" when this is the kind of shit you get mad about.

>At the moment we are dealing with historic inflation and are headed into a bitter winter. The homeless are in a perpetual struggle and these two things will effect them more than any other segment of the population this year. I don't think Plantation St is on their list of things to worry about.

And yet it's on YOUR list of things to worry about, because you're here on the internet complaining about it instead of helping homeless people. So explain to me why it's different and why you don't have any obligation to spend your time wisely. I guarantee you have spent exactly as much time thinking about this as the UMASS personnel who submitted the proposal to city hall - which, by the way, was voted down anyways.

>Anything better to do than fire off blow by blow retorts to OP?

I don't think my time is particularly valuable, which is why I didn't start this discussion off by talking about people wasting their time. I'm happy to admit that I waste my time by talking to morons like you.

>If things are fine as they are in any given situation, e.g. the Grafton Hill's array of street names, telling someone not to intervene to make a change is sensible.

So literally your only argument is that all change is inherently bad and has to be hyper-justified. There's a lot more examples of that in the city for you to freak out about than just the name of one street. Frankly I'm just disregarding this argument entirely, in the wake of all the changes Worcester has gone through I think pretending anyone cares about one street name is truly disingenuous.

>The fact that some people here, yours truly not included, don't know the history is further proof of the argument that no one views "plantation" in some historical sense.

You can know the connotations of the word "plantation" without knowing the specific history of Quinsigamond plantation. This is like arguing that if you know what a castle is, then you must know the history of Windsor castle.

>not the slavery that didn't even exist in the area when Quinsigamond Plantation was named.

As established earlier, there was slavery in the area - the enslavement of Native Americans. Like I said, nobody who's mad about this change knows anything about the history of Quinsigamond Plantation, including you.

>It is very important to the history of the area and country.

Literally everything that happens is technically important to history. But "it's important to history" and "people in the area know and/or care about it" are two different statements.

>The Johnson massacre.

Ah, so the one thing you knew is "well the natives killed some people too". Convenient.

>A distraction?

Yes, a way for you to avoid the actual point, which is that the Quinsigamond Plantation does have a history with slavery and genocide. Your little "oh who said anything about AFRICAN slavery" schtick was just stalling for time.

>I use sites like still made in the US and others before I purchase most things.

And where do those companies get their materials from? Do you think you can circumvent international capitalism with smart choices from a website?

>It really does not matter to the conversation though, as I am not trying to change the name of anything.

You are trying to preserve the name of something that you have no genuine reason to care about. Also, it does matter to the conversation, since your main reason that UMASS shouldn't advocate for the name being changed is that you personally believe they aren't morally pure enough to "deserve" it.

>No reason? Why do you say that?

I mean you don't really care. Nobody in this thread does. Pretending that a street name being changed is somehow offensive or disgusting to you is obviously fake shit. What you actually care about is the idea of things becoming "more PC", hence why a street name has become the flashpoint for all of Worcester's dingy little conservatives to crawl out of the darkness and pretend they have something important to say.

>Put your money where your mouth is UMASS and do something about real problems not some BS feel good renaming of a street.

Do you imagine this is an either/or scenario? If the street continues to be named "Plantation St", do you think this will help poor people and homeless people get help faster? Do you imagine that UMASS is choosing between feeding the homeless and renaming a street?

You can say it's a pointless publicity stunt, and I'd probably agree. But you're acting like renaming the street is somehow preventing them from giving aid to the homeless. It isn't. It's not even their street to rename, they're just saying that the city government should do it.

>I did not see much information about slavery on Quinsigamond Plantation in your link. Much more like a passing comment.

Yes it's almost like Quinsigamond Plantation isn't tremendously important to history and the people furiously defending its namesake are just looking for things to be upset about. Again, did you know a single thing about it before today?

>I like to learn about the history of my surroundings, so yes, I did.

Name one thing about it without Googling right now.

>Who said anything about where the slaves originated from? I asked about slaves.

And I answered about slaves. I told you about slavery, and genocide to boot. So it sounds like you're just looking for a distraction.

>Why is UMass not addressing today's slaves.

Are you? Do you make sure all the products you use are made without slave labor? Or are you "virtue signalling" right now?

>Pushing to change the name of a street because of the word plantation is about as shallow as you can get.

Pushing against it for effectively no reason is shallower.

>Currently, I'm waiting for feedback on a document I need to process. Not much else to do.

OK so when you have free time it's normal but when "the medical school" has people with free time it's obviously a sign that something's wrong. Sure dude.

>Just to be clear, street names don't matter

Yes. Like I literally don't care if they change it or not. It is meaningless. But watching people like you freak out about it is frankly pathetic. You guys are so desperate for victimhood while decrying it in others.

>Well, the first picture Wikipedia shows for "plantation"

You mean the same Wikipedia page that says plantations are extensively linked with slavery in the American colonies, and even today plantations are associated with para-slavery? Wow, great investigative work. Really cracked the case with that one.

>People are still angry that Kilby Street's name was changed to whatever it was changed to, that Crystal Park became University Park, and so on. Just talk to any New Yorker over a certain age about 6th Ave vs. Avenue of the Americas and you'll encounter a strong opinion.

When you say "people" you mean a handful of people like you with too much time on their hands and too much self-importance bemoaning how much everything is changing and it's all so difficult. So yes, all those people are pathetic too. I suggest you get a hobby or something since you apparently have so much free time on your hands that you need to vice-signal about street names to show how much you don't care about racism or whatever. I, for one, do actually have better things to do than listen to you rant.

I don't know if it had African slaves but apparently at the time when the area was called "Quinsigamond plantation", settlers were in the habit of enslaving natives...so, basically, yes.

"Between the war’s outbreak in June 1675 and its end in August 1676, up to forty percent of New England’s indigenous population had been killed, died in captivity, or sold into slavery."

By the way - did anyone in this thread defending the name "Plantation St" know literally anything about Quinsigamond Plantation before today?

>I'm offended by the idea that the medical school has nothing better to do than to pontificate about street names

And what about you? Do you have anything better to do?

>which would cause even more confusion than there normally is when trying to give directions around the unwieldy traffic grid

Everyone has GPS now, I don't imagine anyone would really give a shit if not for the race angle.

>fail to recall that there were and currently are plantations without slavery

Sure dude. All those famous slavery-free plantations.

>These people are just inventing problems.

"Oh no they're renaming a street" is inventing a problem too. Again, if this wasn't done for race-related reasons, you absolutely wouldn't care. If they were renaming a street to honor a local hero or just because it sounded better, nobody on the planet would give a shit.

>What next? Change cotton to “funnsies”? Cotton is a word people relate to plantations which is related to slavery = racist. What about “farm” or “crop”? Aren’t those related to plantations and therefore racist too?

"If things were different, then they would be different. Checkmate."

The connection between plantations and slavery is very obvious and common. Adding extra steps and saying "well wouldn't it be ridiculous if they did this next" is irrelevant, because they haven't done that. This is basically like arguing that if the government bans drunk driving, then the next step is to ban driving entirely.

>Stop trying to be offended by everything.

You first, since you're obviously offended by the idea of renaming a street, something nobody in the world cares about otherwise.