The ‘Columbus’ Last Appeal to Queen Isabella’ statue in the Capitol rotunda. (Photo: Public Domain)
Ignorant Grievance Hustlers Come for ‘Racist Street Name’
Cancel Culture: apparently it’s easier to erase history than to teach it
By Katy Grimes, May 16, 2025 3:10 am
Cancel culture comes calling once again in Sacramento. According to SF Gate, “California is reckoning with its colonial past and replacing a street name that included a racial slur in Sacramento County, officials confirmed.”
The street — “Squaw Valley Way” — will be renamed “River Valley Way.”
While they are at it, why doesn’t the state offer to pay the residents of Squaw Valley Way reparations, for their pain and suffering?
When will someone tell these race-baiting busybodies to shut the hell up and do something that actually benefits their long-suffering taxpaying constituents – like fixing the roads, creating more water storage, dropping gas taxes and bringing real education back to the public schools?
Deja vu all over again
In June 2020, a Sacramento woman 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.
“It always kind of bothered me when my kids went to school here,” said Emily Mizokami. “This is supposed to be the pride of the city. There is no pride in John Sutter. There is no pride in enslaving hundreds of indigenous people,” she said. One woman said.
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.
Also in June 2020, California Democratic Senate and Assembly leaders in Sacramento announced that the beautiful historical statue of Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella in the State Capitol Rotunda would also be removed.
Because racism. The Globe reported that then-Senator Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), then-Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood), and then-Assemblyman Ken Cooley (D-Rancho Cordova) claimed that “Columbus’ genocidal past” as the reason for removal of the Columbus and Queen Isabella statue, “given the deadly impact his arrival in this hemisphere had on indigenous populations.”
You can’t make up the sheer stupidity and shallowness of these people.
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 in the Capitol rotunda until its 2023 removal.
If Columbus had not discovered America, none of us would be here today.
In June 2023, the Sacramento City Board of Education voted to rename three schools: Sutter Middle School became Miwok Middle School, Peter Burnett Elementary School was renamed Suy:u Elementary School, and Kit Carson International Academy was renamed Umoja International Academy.
What were the crimes committed by the namesakes of these schools? According to the School Renaming Committee appointed by the SCUSD Board of Education, “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 useful. Rather than teaching the history – all history – to school children about the times and customs of the past, and show how much we as a society have learned and changed, 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.
And John Sutter discovered gold on the American River.
The Sac City school district says in their renaming schools policy explanation, “This policy allows for the naming for facilities after individuals whose “primary legacy” aligns with the District’s mission and vision.”
These are useless bureaucrats.
In 2024, 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.”
Another useless bureaucrat
Biden Administration U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in 2021, created a federal task force, the “Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force,” to find replacement names for geographic features on federal lands. Haaland said the term “squaw” was “racist” and such terms “have no place in our vernacular or on our federal lands.”
“In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that created a process for the state to review and replace the term from the state’s geographic features,” SF Gate reported.
AB 2022 by Assemblyman James Ramos (D-San Bernardino), the racist and sexist term “squaw” will be removed from all geographic features and place names in the state, and a process to review petitions to change offensive or derogatory place names will be created.
Talk about special interest legislation.
In 2021, Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows was changed to Palisades Tahoe. I have yet to hear anyone actually stop calling it “Squaw Valley.”
The grievance hustling taking place in California by California’s tribes is escalating as they take full advantage of their rare legal stature with ignorant and willing lawmakers.
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.
Our California and American history is systematically being destroyed right under our noses, one street, one school, one statue, one ski resort, and one mountain at a time.
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if a group of people find a name offensive i see no harm in changing it. If someone decided to name their street Katy Grimes Bad Writer Parkway I think the author might feel the same.
Leaving aside that you are probably one of the Gavin Trolls who has been routinely popping up lately (Brandon, is that you?), your comment was offensive to me and was likely offensive to many readers here. Thus, should it be removed, and your name slandered by the California Globe’s editor on top of it? I think you would say no, that shouldn’t happen. And if you said that shouldn’t happen, I would agree.
What’s more, you likely weighed in here because you know the CA Globe has always had a reputation for approving comments from all points of view, no matter how snarkily and insultingly they are presented. You are being treated fairly and not being censored on a website whose hallmark is transparency. If you think that is good when applied to you, you should then at least grudgingly agree that changing longstanding and iconic place names and removing or vandalizing statues of prominent figures of historical importance is wrong.
Interesting, some may find your name offensive @Prince Campbell, for all we know it has a rich history in your lineage but for the betterment of modern group think you may want to change it to be accepted by your peers who find it bougie, faux regal, and out of touch. It reeks of imperialism.
Just sayin’
Anyone who wants to change the name because the person it was named after was a”colonizer” should be rejected. This progressive theory, popular in college courses, is not just nonsensical but destructive of our heritage and history.
squaw /skwô/
noun
A Native American woman, especially a wife.
A woman or wife.
A female; a woman, especially a married woman; a wife; — in the language of Indian tribes of the Algonquin family, correlative of sannup.
Similar: female wife
^These race hustlers are erasing Native American History as well. Squaw was a tribal name for wife. These race baiters have no regard for history. Will the new name, River Valley evoke a sense of awe, wonder, curiosity of the people who once inhabited and made a life in the area?
One can all so make the argument that they want to erase the importance of women. Squaw translates to wife. I guess a dirty word to the progressive nut jobs! A woman to these culturally illiterate is now a head case called Dylan Mulvaney, a dude who cosplays a woman!
edit *also
Yes, Cali Girl. Isn’t it ironic that using a legitimate native word for woman/wife is somehow racist and “colonial” yet we have a US Supreme Court justice who doesn’t know what a woman is and probably doesn’t know if she’s a woman or not.
It sure is @FedUp! The irony is rich!
If I didn’t know any better I would say women’s empowerment is dead!
Whatever happened to Gloria Steinem and her ilk?
Where is the Cherokee Cher dressed in ceremonial garments when you need her?
According to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson you have to be a biologist in order to know what a woman is!
mmm, yeah, now that is a brilliant mind….
I forget, which political system depends on erasing culture and history in order to create the perfect future but only seems to fill graves and produce misery? Oh yeah, Communism/Marxism. Taught so well in our schools today. Mock me all ya want, show me where I’m wrong! Most California Latinos of note have MecHa and La Raza in their back grounds, these are not student groups, look at the results.
A nation that loses its history has no identity. Along with “multiculturalism” and the promotion of perversions and general weirdness this nonsense is about purposefully changing notions of patriotism and national pride, who we are. This is how the communists in our midst change our government to a form that has never worked as promised and has enslaved and spread impoverished misery wherever it becomes established. A quote I heard recently about the effort – “the issue is not the issue, the issue is the revolution.”
Bingo!
Katy Grimes is so right the Democrat grievance hustlers in Sacramento would rather focus on renaming things instead of fixing the roads, creating more water storage, dropping gas taxes and bringing real education back to the public schools.
YouTuber Metal Leo just released another video documenting the economic devastation of downtown Sacramento showing that it’s full of empty storefronts and closed businesses. The only thing thriving in downtown Sacramento are the homeless encampments. This is what decades of Democrat control has done to Sacramento’s once vibrant downtown.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C52e-vr_39k)
Newsom calls that progress!
The 4th largest economy in the world, don’t cha know
They’d probably crucify Cher if she sang her hit “Half Breed” today:
“The Indians said I was White by law, the White man always called me Indian Squaw”…
I haven’t been paying attention since I couldn’t care less about Cher today, but I wonder how she justifies this song and if she “cancels” herself and distances herself for songs like that and “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves”?
Edit: just looked this up cuz I was curious, and to no surprise:
Cher has faced criticism from Native American activists for cultural appropriation, continuing to use similar costumes in performances until 2017. In a 2017 Twitter exchange, she stated she would no longer perform the song or wear the costume. Rolling Stone noted the omission of “Half-Breed” from Cher’s 2024 compilation Forever, attributing it to a broader trend of artists reassessing their catalogs in light of changing cultural sensibilities.
John, I read that the whole “Cherokee” thing was a stunt orchestrated by her manager in the 1970’s. Cher admitted that later on but she certainly made money off the act, Cher’s exotic looks came from her Armenian father. I had a girlfriend for several years who looked a lot like Cher. Her father was from Armenia. Stunning. Sigh!
Cher was never a beauty? She was homely with bad skin and had a large nose in 1966 when she started her career.
(https://in.pinterest.com/pin/download-this-stock-image-cher-us-singer-about-1966-be1hy2-from-alamys-library-of-millions-of-high-resolution-stock-phot–508062401712992299/)
She was never the sharpest tool in the shed having dropped out of high school? She probably sold her soul to the dark side for fame and wealth?
Many of us are waiting for her to move out of the USA. In an interview from 2023 Cher said that she was horrified by the possibility of Trump regaining power. “I almost got an ulcer the last time,” she said. “If he gets in, who knows? This time I will leave [the country].”
(https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/4263425-cher-trump-reelection/)
TJ, copy that. I liked her music and thought she was attractive. Don’t care for her politics.
I just wanted to point out how phony these women are and are actually not committed to their cause of elevating women and to use their term, people of color. They are part of the system to destroy the American culture and mock our republic.
Cher is still around? I don’t care anything about Cher, Sonny, Sonny’s widow. It’s not that I dislike them, I have no feeling either way about them and they have been inconsequential to my life. As for anyone who threatens to leave the country, I would ask if their bags are packed, and if so why aren’t they on the plane?
“It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack.” ~ Voltaire
“The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
Then Obama Blvd. in Los Angeles needs to be renamed. Obama is total racist, and his name shouldn’t be on anything.
Beware of for what you ask: If the Dept of Interior decides to change the name of Sutter Buttes the most likely new name will be “Trump Buttes”.
Anthe d may I add that the developers of ski resort for the 1960 Winter Olympics whose name we cannot mention, should apologize for using such an offensive word in their development! Or at least give back to the indigenous people a portion of their profits! In 2019 Dan Walters at Calmatters identified these culprits as, oh wait , William Newsom (Gavin’s Dad) and John Pelosi (Namcy’s Father-in-law), [sigh] never mind. https://calmatters.org/commentary/2019/01/gavin-newsoms-keeping-it-all-in-the-family/
I’m old now but my dad used to tell me about my great grand father who was married to a Squaw. He traded Indian heads (on arrows) for a living and had a quite impressive collection. As teens, we used to visit some of his collection at the South West Museum of the American Indian next to the Pasadena Freeway. The collection seems to have gone away but our whole family was very proud to have a Squaw as part of it.