‘Plantations’ OK in Beaufort County: Erasing names is a slippery slope | Letters

I must take issue with your editorial calling for the removal of the word “plantation” from the names of numerous developments on Hilton Head Island.

Your reasoning is that the word is offensive to the black community. If you bother to consult the dictionary, you will find that “plantation” is a historical term denoting a colony or new settlement. Therefore, it is an accurate description for the various developments on Hilton Head.

Does anyone have a problem with Massachusetts’ Plimouth Plantation, which depicts life in the 1620s? I’m sorry that some find the word offensive.

Your call is just another step down the slippery slope of rewriting history to appease one group. The call to remove monuments to Confederate Civil War dead is another example. Should the Northern states be required to remove their monuments to their Civil War dead as well?

History is messy and often painful, but does that mean we forget it? Taking this movement to its logical conclusion, we should tear down both the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial, as both these Founding Fathers were slave holders. And we can dynamite their faces off Mount Rushmore while we are at it.

As far as offending someone, I am offended by any group who hyphenates their ancestors’ place of origin with their nationality. My ancestors were Irish, but I don’t refer to myself as an Irish-American. It promotes racism, as it defines separate groups within our country. But no one cares whether a white male finds anything offensive.

James Pickard

Beaufort

It’s long past time to get rid of ‘plantation’

I am writing in passionate support of eliminating the word “plantation” from all our communities.

As a resident of Hilton Head Island for over 40 years — mostly in Sea Pines and now Port Royal — it has always bothered me that this word (actually, a description) has been attached to so many of the surrounding neighborhoods. Moreover, I have always been embarrassed to tell friends and acquaintances from everywhere else that I lived in a “plantation.”

It signifies images of laborers in cotton fields, trees with rope nooses hanging down, overseers and children called “pickaninnies” — not simply racial injustice but terrible, damnable slavery and the Civil War itself.

The word “plantation” meant that long ago. Still does. Always will.

We on Hilton Head cannot do much to change things for the better in race relations or in finally righting the wrongs of the past.

But we can do a very simple thing.

Frankly, because it is just right.

We can get rid of the term “plantation” now. And forever.

It didn’t take a black kid jogging in Georgia getting ambushed by white racists, or a black woman in Louisville being riddled by white cops, or ultimately the tragic demise of George Floyd for Sea Pines many years ago to quietly drop the ugly, useless, definitively cursed “plantation” from its name.

Sea Pines did the right thing then.

It is long past time that the rest of us do the same now.

Let “plantation” be, indeed, gone with the wind.

Curry Kirkpatrick

Hilton Head Island

Beware claims about George Soros

I was appalled and dismayed to read two recent letters in the Packet expressing hatred and blame for the “out of control looting, burning, even killing” and the fight between “good vs. evil,” attributing it to “the Rothschilds, George Soros and their paid deep-state players ...”

These statements come directly out of the Dark Web, white-supremacist and far-right wing websites. They are unfounded and debunked conspiracy theories. Dig deeper, and they are proven code words for anti-Semitic beliefs because those named are Jewish philanthropists who support progressive causes.

George Soros, a 90-year-old Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, has become the focus of hate emanating from Victor Orban, the right-wing president of Hungary, as a scapegoat to deflect from the wrongs and loss of human rights that have increased since Orban was elected. This hatred has spread widely, and obviously has found its way to the USA.

I must point out that the man who slaughtered 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh wrote the same words as in these letters in his online manifesto before he stormed into that house of worship.

That the Packet would allow these lies to be published is shocking. The printed word is powerful. The paper’s editorial staff should be ashamed for legitimizing anti-Semitic and anti-American poison like this.

Elaine Israel

Hilton Head Island

Don’t believe liberal bashing

I am so pleased to find out that as a liberal I tolerate looting and the destruction of private property and injuries to police. I guess my lifetime of being a good citizen and active volunteer and many years as a public school teacher are of no importance because of my political views.

I am also pleased to find out that anti-Semitism is alive and well in our country. Thank you for the dog whistle in your letters about George Soros and the Rothschilds. I was under the impression that giving to organizations that fight poverty, fascism and support civil rights and women were good things. But I guess if your name is George Soros, then these good deeds mean nothing. And the Rothchilds?

Tena Graber

Hilton Head Island

‘Plantation’ message is clear: ‘Whites Only’

Having moved to Beaufort in 2015 from New Jersey, I was aghast at the idea that developments would be called “plantations”!

My first thought was, “If I were a black person, I sure would not want to live on a ‘plantation.’

The message was clear ... no signage or rules needed after that ... it sure said “Whites Only” to me.

Diane Schmid

Beaufort

All of a sudden I’m ‘shameful’?

Here’s another good reason to read The Island Packet.

Until Tuesday morning, I thought that I was a kind of normal guy just rolling along. Then I opened my copy of the Packet and, lo and behold, I discovered that, because I live in a place called a plantation, that I am: disrespectful, shameful, hypocritical, and by inference, bigoted. Who’d a thunk it!

David Duffin

Hilton Head Island

Join together to get rid of ‘plantation’

After attending the rally for justice and change on Hilton Head Island, and having many conversations with my family, I like many white Americans, am facing many hard truths.

Your article in Tuesday’s Packet featured our language that represents slavery, which is easy to overlook when not faced with the oppression felt by my black neighbors.

One notable word is “plantation.”

In historical terms, it represents an agricultural settlement where slavery is the main source of labor. This word is used extensively on Hilton Head in the names of many gated communities.

Some may be resistant to removing the word “plantation,” saying that the word represents the heritage of the island. They are correct, it does pay homage to its heritage – but to a practice that does not deserve a tribute.

For black residents of the island, and now for me, this word represents a history of racism that we must recognize, and we must not tolerate.

We need to join together and call for the word to be stripped from the places we call home.

Diane Dear

Hilton Head Island

What will we call the South?

Pretty soon, we are going to have to come up with a new name for the direction that is opposite of north.

Wayne Wicker

Beaufort

No comparison between Trump and Harry Truman

A recent letter said President Donald Trump takes “credit for all good things that happen. Duh? He is a politician.”

I thought he was a businessman. Duh?

Also, do not disrespect and embarrass President Harry S. Truman by comparing him to Trump. Harry’s motto was “the buck stops here.” Trump’s motto is “the buck pauses here while I pass it on.”

Joe Steiner

Hilton Head Island

This story was originally published June 14, 2020 at 9:17 AM.