ROBERT M. PENTA'S POINTS
COLUMBUS Name Change - Zoom School Committee Meeting
Wednesday, March 10th 5:30PM
The yearlong saga for re-naming the South Medford Columbus School stemming from six of the seven Medford School Committee members and an aggressive, progressive movement is scheduled for a zoom school committee re-naming meeting, on Wednesday, March 10th, at 5:30 PM.
History has taught us that our future actions are predicated upon the actions of our past.
Reviewing yesterday’s history, believing it to be good or bad, bridges us to be responsible for it being our teaching tool for the future. Whether history is portrayed in truthfulness or in a revisionary way can only be accepted or rejected in the mind(s) of the reader(s).
The issue of changing the 519-year-old name and history of the Columbus School was originally introduced by a school committee member along with the support of extreme Medford progressives who support the anti-Columbus revisionary history. Anti-Columbus re-visionary writers such as Howard Zinn, Hans Koning and Noam Chomsky allege Columbus to have been a genocidal discoverer of the new world of the Americas. Many of the writings by these individuals have selectively and conveniently left out journal passages by Columbus thereby downplaying or suppressing the full extent of Columbus’s journal writings. They also omit Columbus’s bringing of Christianity to the newly discovered world. Zinn’s writings in particular fail to demonstrate a path to objective history but rather embraces intentional, selective omissions.
Unfortunately, six Medford school committee members and extreme, city, progressive activists who are supporting this change have never entertained a community tolerance forum for rebuttal and discourse to present their case.
Let today’s educational personnel and school committee members and citizens understand that the original Columbus School naming in 1929 resulted from hundreds of hours of South Medford residents planning and raising thousands of dollars for their new school. Their petition naming right for Christopher Columbus showed their community pride before the then school committee.
If this name change is successful, will the decision open Pandora’s Box for anything that any person or group may feel offended by? Is this going to present our city with a new era where we need to look at every building, bridge, statute, library, room, street corner, street name etc. named after someone?
What would serve our city better would be for the school committee to rescind its’ earlier vote to remove the Christopher Columbus name thereby ending this one-sided issue as has been presented. Instead, leave the historical names, locations and monuments as is and having the city form a multi-purpose historical commission for the creating of informational attachment(s) and/or plaque(s) providing our city with a historical description … rather than to condemn or take down.
I always try to listen to others’ thoughts and ideas to better understand their positions. To those of you who have criticized me with your insults, name calling, vulgarity, arrogance, and a cancel culture attempt for my address of this Columbus School name change, as well as other issues, your narrative does nothing to further your position. This just demonstrates your ignorance and perpetuates more division. It will never deter me from speaking my mind.
In conclusion, this issue should be a galvanizing force for Medford citizens to realize that controversial issues such as this, should not be allowed to be changed without allowing for tolerance, rebuttal and discourse … otherwise Medford’s historical fiber will be at risk or even lost.
For those Medford citizens who are concerned about this issue, please contact the Mayor, as chairperson of the Medford School Committee, and the 6 members of the School Committee and /or zoom in on their Wednesday March
0 comments:
Post a Comment