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John Henry wants to rename Yawkey Way because Yawkey was a racist
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Just Have It Go Back To Being Jersey Street
There are naysayers out there that said the Yawkeys, who were childless, did this and did that around the city, but yes, that was after TAY had been dirt napping for years. (It was a roasting hot day the day he died by the way).
Mrs. Yawkey's Accountant; Good BC Boy John Harrington was the one who spread the wealth from the sale of the Sox around the city's charities, reportedly north of $450M. Partially out of guilt, maybe?
That might be enough of a legacy builder to counter what seems to be a 1989 Eastern European change that is starting to ramp up in town. (Faneuil Hall name change, really? I'm descended from people who had their government overlords try to starve them to death, can we change all the name of Boston since it is English?)
Remember, there is a big difference between being the last team to have black players in this town (including the Bruins!), than openly rebelling and trying to rend the Union broken and then try to say they were justified in doing it, thus all the memorials over the "War of Northern Aggression".
Then again, I have always hated the term "Way" when referring to feeder streets in the city.
Bruins
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but the Bruins were the FIRST team in the NHL to have a black player, Willie O'Ree.
"In This Town" is the operative phrase
There are some good small pieces on Willie O'Ree on Youtube.
Also, remember, the Celtics was the first team to have a black coach and a starting black five.
Henry instead should devote
Henry instead should devote his time on focusing to have more minorities as season ticket holders . You go to a baseball game at Fenway and there is a sea of white suburban season ticket holders. Never mind changing the street name. Black youth of Boston never will have that chance to see their own baseball team play.
There's an easy way to fix
There's an easy way to fix this. Just change the formal name of the street to Jean Yawkey Way, with Yawkey Way being the short form printed on signs. Tom Yawkey was the racist and crappy owner. Jean owned the team in her own right for a number of years after Tom died, wasn't particularly racist to my knowledge, and did a ton of charitable stuff, including establishing a number of scholarships for minority students, all of which makes her at least plausibly worthy of having the street named after her. All the good vibes of taking a racist's name off, none of the expense or hassle of changing signs or maps, and none of the inevitable controversy over what name should replace Yawkey. There's precedent for a similar move; Washington State changed the name of King County from being named after William Rufus de Vane King, a slave owner and pro slavery Senator/brief vice president, to being named after Martin Luther King.
I don't know about Jean Yawkey's attitudes on race,
but BU is certainly grateful for her $10M worth of largesse, and another gift of $15M to BU Medical Center for its cancer clinic.
Asshole Tom gets a shout-out for both in the press releases, but he'd been dead for decades when both those donations were made.
The guy spent most of his adult life chasing a championship for Boston that eluded him, having passed on chances to get both Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays. Too effing bad. That didn't make those seven-game Series losses any less painful to my childhood self at the time, but I feel a little better about them, knowing what I know now.
So we should examine names of
So we should examine names of each street in Boston and search the backgrounds of streets named after people, see if they are racists, criminals, bootleggers( Kennedys) fraudsters, anarchists,
Murderers..
Don't stop there!
Why is being racist worse than being anti-LGBT? Anti-gay marriage? I think everyone in our great state should be vetted and if you don't live up to community standards, you should be asked to leave.
Don't stop there!
Why is being racist worse than being anti-LGBT? Anti-gay marriage? I think everyone in our great state should be vetted and if you don't live up to community standards, you should be asked to leave.
What you mean "We"
John Henry owns that street, more or less... that's different from the city spending its time and energy renaming streets.
As the saying goes
What's good for the goose is good for the gander,
And Yawley Way is still a public street, regardless of who is proposing changing the name. To allow this pointless "feel good" exercise of renaming one street without evaluating other streets named after people that would be considered "racists" by today's standards, even though they didn't break any laws at the time, and in spite of any greater good they may have done (think Washington and Faneuil here) is nothing more than exercising a double standard.
That's far fetched
John Henry is intimately intertwined with Yawkey Way and all things Yawkey. Faneuil, Washington, not so much.
There's no double standard in John Henry publicly opining about the former and not the latter. One of them is very much his business - literally - and the other not.
John Henry bought Yawkey way,
John Henry bought Yawkey way, a street that was maintained and owned by the tax payers of Boston, Can I go out there with a dumpster full of cash and walk into city hall and say ' hey here's some cash I would like to buy state street.
I didn't know rich fuckers can go out and buy a public street.
No evidence Joseph Kennedy
No evidence Joseph Kennedy was a bootlegger. He had many negative qualities(Some degree of sympathy to the Nazis, antisemitism, Rosemary's lobotomy, general jackassery), but from what I've read, all of Joe's alcohol business was at least technically legal and aboveboard. Joe sold legal medicinal alcohol before Prohibition ended, and was a major importer afterwards. Sure, everybody and their grandma knew that "medicinal alcohol" was a cheap excuse for a good drink, but it was legal to import and sell alcohol for medicinal purposes during prohibition, and by all accounts, Joe dotted his Is and crossed his Ts on all the paperwork, so you can't really call him a bootlegger. My source is Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by Daniel Okrent. It's a good book, I'd recommend it.
how about
Tom Brady Pass
Already exists in Framingham
We definitely don't need two.
Isn't
that Flutie Pass in Framingham?
Amenities
Any street named after a person who thinks Trump would be a great president (read Brady, Kraft and Belli-cheat) should include a tire pump to make sure items are inflated correctly and hidden cameras.
Found the Jets fan. Probably
Found the Jets fan. Probably wants Jersey St back.
Jets??
not a jets fan. i just don't like owners (bellicheat) that support people (trump) that mock our POWs.
i respect our military too much.
For some reason
Jersey St. seems to be a good name!
I know
Street E.
Because this is our fucking Street E!
Boston Medical Center
The Yawkey Building is on Harrison Avenue but was named only after Jean Yawkey's death. So I guess it;s named after her.
A slippery slope
We are changing streets names because the Red Sox sucked during the fifties? Mr Tom Yawkey probably was a racist but he wasn't a traitor or a slave master. Are we going to change the name of Ray Flynn marine park because Ray who is a great guy led the volatile anti-busing forces that led to riots because black kids were getting bussed to Southie High.
Interesting question, but no
Yawkey was a racist to the day he died. Flynn, however, changed.
I get it
Vader Way: good
Palpatine Way: bad
Wouldn't that be
Yoda Way (or would that be Way Yoda?): good
Jabba The Hut Way: bad
Turns out, those aren't unrelated
The Sox sucked in the fifties in no small part BECAUSE of their racist owner. They had the first shot at both Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays and it was directly scuttled by their racist owners.
Can you imagine a team with Jackie and Willie to go along with Teddy?
it is, but
it is a slippery slope, but the Sox are a private company. The city isnt proposing this. From Sox ownership standpoint, it isnt little known history Yawkey was a known racist and the Sox were the last to integrate (not just the players, down to the concessions). So this is an embarrassment to a privately held company. If they can petition the city to rename is something more positive, all the power to them.
Elijah "Pumpsie" Greenway
...
Changing the name isn't a big deal
The Red Sox did not begin with Tom Yawkey, and they'll do just fine without his name outside the stadium. The stadium and the area around it have gone through many changes, particularly in the last 20 years -- why should this be particularly sacred?
White people can't run from their history
We get it, most white people back then were racist, I don't think anyone can argue that point. There's no point in trying to act like American history isn't history. Let the statues (and street names) stay, its a part of who we are, whether we like it or not. But then again I'm not overly sensitive so maybe others are generally bothered by things like that.
RENAME EVERY STREET NOW
By modern standards, I think everyone who was born before, say, 1950 could be branded a 'racist.' Why stop at Yawkey Way?
The usual failure to know history
Do tell us: when was that street RENAMED to Yawkey Way?
I bet you didn't even think of that - but "think" and "knowing history" usually go together.
Oooh!
Looks like somebody is getting all riled up ahead of their rally tomorrow!
Naw
Just the ones that were renamed for extreme racists.
.
.
I didn't know Henry was a bandwagon-jumper
C'mon, I'm supposed to believe John Henry had no desire to publicly state his suddenly-divulged (and likely, suddenly-concocted) concern about the street being named Yawkey Way, until THIS VERY WEEK? Too convenient.
I'll go focus my sports fanaticism on other organizations who quietly accept statues/street names of past significance, which shouldn't have any bearing on how anyone in TODAY's society can & should act.
YAWKEY WAY
Where does it stop. Is there any sense of forgiveness for people who did stupid things? Can anyone us throw stones?
Boston would be better off if...
The Red Sox snookered the City by giving it precious little money for the street named Yawkey Way, even though the team makes a fortune on it. (Boston Redevelopment Authority greased the skids on the deal.) We'd be better of it the loaded Red Sox paid Boston a percent of what it makes on the street and then thought about this gesture.
They re-named another street near Fenway Park
Richard B Ross Way replaced Burlington Street and Mr Ross sounds like he was a really nice guy Why don't they move his name a block east ?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Richard+B.+Ross+Way,+Boston,+MA+02215/@42.3447229,-71.101226,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89e379f6763ce32d:0xabd9ab9e098c8e96!8m2!3d42.3447229!4d-71.0990373
http://madnessofmarchblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/richard-b-ross-way.html
Maybe next year
Amazing how different people are.
Baltimore erects a statue of Ray Lewis ( do your homework).
John Henry wants to delete a man who's donated multi millions of dollars. But was a victim of the times.
I hope he never needs to go to the Yawkey foundation for medical help.
Is it possible he will donate all money made when he sells the Red Sox?
John Henry is okay with the race baiters on Red Sox Flagship
station WEEI.