Sutter Buttes. (Photo: fws.gov; Timothy Ludwick/USFWS)
Cancel Culture Comes for California’s Sutter Buttes Mountain Range
Uneducated, ignorant grievance hustlers were taught Marxist ‘social justice’ instead of Social Studies
By Katy Grimes, August 4, 2024 11:07 am
No one can rewrite history. Renaming statues, parks, museums, schools or even mountain ranges does not change history, regardless of whether they are named after Confederate military leaders, racially-biased political figures, Native American tribes or “Swiss Colonizers.”
And the people behind the attempts to erase history refuse to acknowledge the momentous events or awe-inspiring contributions to California and American history by those whose names were given to historical statues, schools, mountains or parks, so that we could learn and remember.
In June 2020, CBS13 reported on a Sacramento woman who announced that she wanted to change the name of Sutter Middle School, named after John Sutter, famous for the discovery of gold on the American River, after reports that he owned slaves. “There is no pride in John Sutter. There is no pride in enslaving hundreds of indigenous people,” she said.
This is one ignorant woman’s opinion. Yet the Sacramento City School District board was all-too eager to erase John Sutter from the district.
Jumping on the bandwagon to rename Sutter Middle School took place at the same time as the violent and destructive George Floyd protests, and as historic figures’ statues and monuments were being toppled across the country. Even the statue of former San Diego Mayor, Governor, and U.S. Senator Pete Wilson was removed from Horton Plaza in San Diego in 2020 under threats of vandalism by activists over Wilson’s support of Proposition 187 in 1994 while he was Governor of California. The statue was returned two months later.
The cancel culture ignores the context and the era in which events happened. John Sutter should only be judged according to the culture and traditions of his times, not by uneducated, ignorant grievance hustlers in the 2020’s who were taught social justice instead of Social Studies.
In June 2020, California Democratic Senate and Assembly leaders in Sacramento also announced that the statue of Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella in the State Capitol Rotunda would be removed.
The statue, “‘Columbus’ Last Appeal to Queen Isabella,” was gifted to California by gold rush banker Darius Ogden Mills in 1883. It sat almost entirely uninterrupted for 137 years in the Capitol rotunda.
If Columbus had not discovered America, none of us would be here today.
Recently I heard a local news reporter call John Sutter a “Swiss Colonizer” when reporting on the latest attempt to erase his history – the renaming of the Sutter Buttes mountain range. This ignorant talking point is used to abolish his importance; to eliminate his contributions to California and American history. Notably, the Sacramento Bee also used this misrepresentation:
“A request to change the name of the Sutter Buttes has led to an outburst of opinions from the public on whether a colonizer’s racist past should define the cluster of volcanic hills colloquially called the ‘world’s smallest mountain range,’” the Sacramento Bee reported. “In March, a petition was filed to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to change the name of the Sutter Buttes to the Sacred Buttes.”
Residents of Sutter County are fighting this effort.
The Sacramento City School District effort was more far reaching than just removing John Sutter’s name from one school – the district created a ridiculous policy, spent time and hundreds of thousands of dollars on it, despite that more than half of SCUSD students do not meet basic state English standards, and nearly three quarters fail to meet basic state math standards:
“As part of Sac City Unified’s commitment to confront and interrupt racism and create safe learning environments that are welcoming, inclusive, and inspiring places for all students and staff, the SCUSD Board of Education voted at the June 22, 2023 meeting to rename three schools as Miwok Middle School (formerly Sutter Middle School), Suy:u Elementary School (formerly Peter Burnett Elementary School), and Umoja International Academy (formerly Kit Carson International Academy).”
“A School Renaming Committee was appointed by the SCUSD Board of Education in the Fall of 2020 and was composed of one-third Native American voices, one-third administrators and staff, and one-third of Board-appointed community members.”
“The Committee was specifically designed to incorporate community voices from throughout the District and to uplift the native voice since Peter Burnett, John Sutter and Kit Carson led the systematic killing and enslavement of large numbers of California native peoples.”
This is what ignorant grievance hustlers do to signal their virtue and make themselves feel better, rather than teaching the history – all history – to teach school children about the times and customs of the past, and show how much we as a society have learned and changed. Apparently it’s easier to erase history than to teach it.
Peter Burnett was California’s first Governor.
Kit Carson was a famous frontiersmen, fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer who took part in the expansion of the American west.
Will the students in Sac City schools be taught any of this, or will they instead be trained as good little foot soldiers in the Marxist “social justice” movement? Their peers fighting over the Sutter Buttes seem to be making headway regardless of public outcry. Because now history must align with the Marxist left’s mission and vision, cloaked under the pretense of social justice, disassembling the bedrock of the American republic by rewriting history.
History is a continuous, systematic narrative of past events and people, countries, time periods, and usually written as a chronological account.
Just imagine what will be written about this time in history.
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This is infuriating.
By the way, Kit Carson School in East Sacramento was renamed UMOJA – which is supposed to be a “principle” of KWANZAA. Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, (AKA Ronald Everett) who, oh gosh, was convicted for the felony assault and false imprisonment of two women.
Just like it came for Squaw Valley a small unincorporated town in the foothills east of Fresno. It is now known as Youket Valley on the map, but all the locals still call it Squaw Valley. Identity politics is really about all these folks have left and it has worn thin on the public. We either give in to them or stand our ground as say no to “weird” politics.
Katy Grimes: “[T]he people behind the attempts to erase history refuse to acknowledge the momentous events or awe-inspiring contributions to California and American history by those whose names were given to historical statues, schools, mountains or parks, so that we could learn and remember.”
Marxists = Pro-Lie, Anti-Truth, All Day, Every Day
They NEVER want us to know what really happened. About anything. They don’t want us to be inspired by great accomplishments and feats and courage and nobility and overcoming great hardship. They don’t want us to be lifted by these things, to learn and be interested in what has made Americans who and what they are, and to be motivated and ennobled by it.
These freaks are doing it again right now as we speak: Re-writing Kamala to a fake heroine status so that a lying politician who has done nothing good but has only caused harm and wreckage to our state and our country can be (they hope) elected President of the United States. To drag us all down so we can be more easily ruled and destroyed. As you know.
Let’s see if leftists and Democratic leaders want to cancel their installed nominee Kamala Harris because she came from a wealthy family on her father’s side that owned black slaves on their Jamaican plantation?
Leftists and Democrats are hypocrites who hold themselves to a different standard?
https://greatgameindia.com/kamala-harris-slave-owner/
Great point TJ.
Yeah, let’s see some equal opportunity CANCELING.
(don’t hold your breath)
Land tenure is impossible for anyone to claim before the introduction of the Anglo-American system of land tenure deedrecordings. They are blowing smoke, if anyone prior claims they “owned the land” and has superior rights.
They are misappropriated and Anglo and now American system to securing land tenure- accurate descriptions, chain of legal tittle, and legal and stamped recordings of claim within government archives. Don’t have all that; you don’t own it.
Stop messing with my Anglo-American cultural heritage claiming that you do..
I was one of the few 12 year olds in the 1950’s to land a dime in Isabella’s crown. It was not easy because they wanted to bounce out.
Back then dimes were made out of real silver.
This is so stupid…so if the supposed “ colonizer’” is removed from history…..do these people believe the indigenous people would be still living on these lands in their teepees?
There is a very easy way of shutting down these people. At least in person. You just ask then have they voted for the Democratic Party. They always have.
So you reply “So you voted for the party of Slavery, the Confederacy, Segregation, Lynching, Jim Crow etc etc.”.
You will almost always getting a blank look of total incomprehension in reply. These people are so low information and so brainwashed that they know nothing about the political history of the US. The Democratic Party was set up to be the defenders of slavery and defended it or black racial segregation for the next 140 years.
Every now and then you do find one who has a bit of a clue. So you turn the conversion to the Dem Part being the party of racial identity politics since the 1820’s. And the very deliberate political pivot the Dem Party did in the early 1960’s from being the party of white Southerners racial identity to the party of big city blacks racial identity. A very well documented pivot. Racial politics first and last.
Usually by this stage they either change the subject or walk away.
Although once in Berkeley I did have a very interesting conversation with someone who had worked in the state party for decades. But that was more a discussion about the mechanics of the party politics of assimilated migrant / immigrant populations. Which has been one of the core voting blocks in the Dem Party since the 1850’s. So not the typical “cancel” idiot.
But apart from that single guy every last one of the we want to “cancelling” some historical figure because of WrongThink is a low information party drone. Not a clue about history. Just reciting slogans and narrative fictions they think is actual history. Which can be verified. From primary sources.
Because slogans are simple. Everything is black and white.. But the actual real history is complicated. Nothing is black and white. Although it was to the “One Drop” Dixiecrates in the 1960’s.
Maybe we should get a proposition passed to have the Democratic Party decertified in the state due its very long history of racism and support for slavery, racial segregation and race based politics. A Free State like California should have no place for a political party that supported racism and racial segregation for over 140 years of its 200 year history and still bases most of its politics on little more than race baiting and fomenting racial division.
Now that would be real fun. Politically. Like to see the state Dem Party talk their way out of that one.
I remind you that the first SLAVE colonies are Massachusetts, Connecticut, and RHODE ISLAND and PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. They shipped slaves to southern colonies, embraced by the King of England. North v South will never end but when you blame southerners recall that northerners (overwhelmingly DIMOCRAT) started it.
MAGA!
Don’t overlook it was Obama cutting a sweetheart deal for Michelle’s Let’sMove Aramark sponsorships, that led to the loss of all Yosemite’s historic names for years.
Small contract detail Obama overlooked, which cost millions having to re-name everything and loss of franchise logo revenues, as well as massive public good will. But Aramark gots its pay-off becoming the exclusive food purveyor for Yosemite.
Kick me in the teeth when this oversight tampering with The Ahwanee, Camp Curry and Wawona, among other long beloved landmarks. Why would Obama even care? Everything is back in place now, but that was a huge kick in the gut when they were forced to rename every single landmark in this US National Park.
Plus the food at the Ahwanee Hotel continued to be crap – a total disgrace considering the magnificence of the setting and the prices of the rooms.
This is a great example.
“Why would Obama even care?”
We have a tendency to think there is always a reason for the madness but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn one day that Obama and His Army (and everyone before and since with the same spirit but different faces) simply ENJOYED messing with the national park-visiting American people this way. By visiting anarchy on everything we love. For “fun.”
A point to ponder – decades after Sutter, in Los Angeles a male Indian scalp sold for two dollars. A female scalp went for one dollar. Manifest Destiny was the rule that populated America, from sea to sea. There were heroes and villains, and it seems not much has changed these days.
Erasing the culture is called Communism.
Let me complete this sentence: “If Columbus had not discovered America, none of us would be here today,” and California’s many Native American tribes would be living in peace and harmony, on land looking much as it did centuries ago.