'Barack Obama Drive' Pushed for San Antonio's East Side
Short version is this: the head of the Freedom Foundation (an "East Side Group", according to the radio station) wants to change the name of Pecan Valley Drive between Martin Luther King Blvd and Rigsby Ave to Barack Obama Avenue. (It's a pretty long road, and I believe most of it would be unchanged.)
Once you exit I-10, you come to a T-intersection. Hang a left, and you're on MLK; hang a right and you're on Pecan Valley. The freeway exit sign now says "Pecan Valley Dr/M. L. King Dr" The symbolism inherent in this is obvious.
Some folks have suggested any such honor should wait until the President is out of office and no longer a political figure. Otis Thompson, head of the Foundation, says this is nonsense. His desire to rename the street has absolutely zero to do with politics; it's just a way to recognize the nation's first black President.
Says he:
"I think that now is a good time to do this during the campaign, because it's on the people's minds, the voters minds."
Oh, well, that makes all the difference in the world.
While I'm bitching about this...Can I just say how absolutely disgusted I am by the constant attempt to elevate Barack Obama to Martin Luther King, Jr's level? I said it back in 2008 and I'll say it again--I'm not seeing any sign Obama has improved the life of one single black person. To imply that a hapa haole who spent the bulk of his childhood being raised in privilege, including attending the private school in Hawaii, is someone your average black man should look up to is ridiculous. His sole contribution to the state of race relations in this country has been to make "if you don't agree, you must be racist" the default position of the Left, rather than an occasional tactic. I don't see that as an improvement.
That said, his position is indisputably historic, and if we just have to go around changing street names, this is a far better choice than renaming a downtown street after an activist who never set one foot in the city.
2 comments:
If it's not about politics then why do it during the campaign? That makes it sound like it's only about politics. Anyway, Clinton was the first black president. Besides, O is only half black anyway.
Can we just quit renaming well established streets? Or at minimum, if we must rename streets, rename the whole damn street, not just a small portion of it. I am so sick of driving down a road and then with no change in direction, it is suddenly a completely different name.
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