Toponyms and Trouble
In 1963, then-Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall recommended that place-names with “N*****” be replaced. The affected places weren’t just in…ya know…panhandles or whatever. The once-upon-a-time N***** Point, NY, for example, reminds me just how expansive such naming practices were.
It took another decade (we’re into the 70s now) for the word “Jap” to be replaced at dozens of sites — a majority in Oregon and Alaska.
Udall created what he called the “out-loud test” for toponyms (place-names): the idea that stuff on our maps probably shouldn’t be there if the “average” person felt weird about saying it out loud. His idea (not really *his* idea) was that, as times changed, the meaning of words would too. And we should be attuned to that as we (re)decide what to call our stuff.
But a lot of crap we don’t say anymore is still there. “Squaw Tit” is a peak just outside Phoenix. The S-word — unlike the N- or J-words — persists with locally led resistance. (See recent attempts by Secretary Haaland to counter such resistance.)
Look, I get it. Cultures like their names. After spending a long time adorning our streets, topographies or municipal buildings, we internalize their meaning as inherently good. We abstract so that they may represent a certain spirit of the community.
But, well, if we stop and think about it *not* in the abstract, many of these names would obviously fail the “out loud test;” right?
Yet: we remain at war between “actual” and “localized” meanings. To us a word has a net-positive value. So we fight to keep it from being wrapped up in a cultural fight happening out there. It’s why communities fight to preserve rhetorical semblances of the past in spite of consummate consensus.
As we continue to debate the importance of naming, I don’t doubt the good intentions of those publics gripping local definitions.
But this requires logical hoop-jumping in order to avoid a basic actuality: we perpetuate words that cause deep pain to those whose likenesses have always been used so casually and callously on maps or as mascots.
The powers that be replaced N- and J-words a generation ago. Yet we maintain other lettered defects that, if we think about it, clearly fail Udall’s test.
And what of that Arizona mountain?
“Squaw” is (maybe it’s not well known?) a vulgar reference to an indigenous woman’s genitals — a word popularized in the white-and-western movements of the 19th century. That toponym ingeniously and simultaneously refers to her vagina and her breasts.
There’s a reason we should struggle with names like the Washington Football Team and the such-and-such Indians. We are still debating which derogatory slang can still pass the “out loud test.” We’ve made some changes over the years because, as a culture, we’ve decided that certain people no longer deserve to be referred to in those ways.
Others seem to keep having to ask…
