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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Following my consideration on the origins of West Green's Black Boy name back in the summer, Haringey Council has decided to rename Black Boy Lane in West Green.

The Council have called the exercise  a 'renaming consultation', but the online questionnaire offers only the ability to choose from a shortlist of two new names. So it appears that the decision to rename has already been taken with only the choice of name left to be decided.

They have issued the following press release.

The council has launched a renaming consultation with residents and businesses located on Black Boy Lane, as part of the wider Review on Monuments, Buildings, Place and Street Names in Haringey – which was launched on 12 June 2020, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The council believes that the names of our monuments, buildings, places and streets must reflect the values and diversity that we are so proud of in the borough. One of the street names that has been identified as not being reflective of this is Black Boy Lane.

Meanings change over time, and the term “Black Boy” is now most commonly used as a derogatory name for African heritage men.

As part of the consultation, the council is asking residents to consider new alternative names that celebrate some of the borough’s most notable influencers, and truly reflect the borough’s rich heritage.

The two names that have been shortlisted for residents to consider are, ‘Jocelyn Barrow Lane’ and ‘La Rose Lane’. The consultation will launch today, Monday 28 September and will run for a period of 4 weeks to Monday 26 October 2020.

Letters will be arriving on Black Boy Lane residents' doorsteps this week, who can respond to the consultation using one of the following methods:

If Haringey residents have concerns or queries about place, street or building names in the borough, please get in touch. Send your views to Leader@haringey.gov.uk.


Bios:

Dame Jocelyn Anita Barrow (15 April 1929 – 9 April 2020) was a Barbadian/Trinidadian British educator, community activist and politician, who was the Director for UK Development at Focus Consultancy Ltd. She was the first Black woman to be a governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and was founder and Deputy Chair of the Broadcasting Standards Council.

John La Rose was a publisher, poet and essayist. He founded the Caribbean Artists’ Movement and publishing company New Beacon Books which has a bookshop in Stroud Green. In 1975, he co-founded the Black Parents Movement from the core of the parents involved in the George Padmore Supplementary School incident in which a young Black schoolboy was beaten up by the police outside his school in Haringey.

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Tags for Forum Posts: blackboy lane name change, review on monuments, building place and street names

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Correction....I May destroy you.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m000jyxy/i-may-destroy-you

Must have been a freudian slip on my part!

To JJB,

I note all your points and think they are all valid. Thank you for the clarification.

When I think of Jonathan Edwards, Linford Christie, Jessica Ennis etc, I think of British Athletes, not the colour of their skin. Just as I think that Jeremy Guscott had the best and slickest pair of hands I have ever seen in a centre.

All the best.

Another off topic Youtube item.

Just how does your skin colour affect you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHdyWBAIS3g

JJ B - So far, I don't think any of your links are off topic.

For me one advantage of not being able to go anywhere for real is "meeting" lots more people online. 

For example on YouTube and in their writing I "met" two sisters: Barbara and Karen Fields who look at the  "strange manouvering" needed to fit humans into grids of race.
https://youtu.be/gFPwkOwaweo?t=552

Comment moved from Tottenham Labour Party in hunt for party members votes in Blackboy ...

Reply by JJ B 2 12:10, 15th February 2021

Politics is life.
But this smacks of the authoritarian type of dirigiste regimes we see in China.

Does the Labour Party have to make it a party political issue and not just trust the residents enough to allow a "free" vote on the name change based on its merits and how they (the residents) really feel?

If the residents are prepared to live with the name then let it be and develope a strategy to explain to the " young Black woman who attended a delegation" that the parameter she is using to judge the issue cannot be the ONLY one that counts.

Just because you feel and announce to the world you have been insulted does not mean that you actually have been insulted. That is just too easy.

It is far more complex than that.

So they want to manipulate an already undemocratic sham 'consultation' so a very small group of people who have conspired among themselves to be 'offended' can make a political point and get themselves in the Guardian. Imagine what they do behind closed doors with more important decisions about education, aged care and other council services. 

Can we draw an inference from this that responses so far to the consultation have not been entirely in favour of the name change.

If so, well done the resistance movement. Keep up the good work 

I'd prefer to avoid speculation if possible. So can I challenge any Labour Party members in Hornsey Wood Green constituency to say for a fact whether or not a similar "official" call has been made for them to press their thumbs on the scales in favour of weighing the Ejiovotes?

Didn't Donald Trump call for counting to be stopped when he was ahead?

So far the most reliable information I can get is that no general letter or email - like the one sent to Tottenham members - has been sent to the several thousand members of the Hornsey Wood Green Constituency Labour Party.
What it seems, has been sent is information about the proposed name change and the reasons for the proposal, which went to delegates in the General Committee (GC) of the Hornsey Wood Green Party. Almost all GC delegates would have at least their main home in Haringey. Some may wish to take part in the online consultation.

If I am wrong I'm happy to be corrected and to apologise and delete or correct my post here.

_______________________________________________
My political declaration is on my personal page.
https://harringayonline.com/profile/AlanStanton

I have been advised by a councillor that a link to the consultation was circulated to 2500 Tottenham residents by the Labour Party. That link has been found to allow 'vote' more than once, and that it is possible to insert the Black Boy Lane postcode (N15 3AR or N15 3AP) and vote, pretending to be a resident directly affected.

As there are not 2500 residents in Black Boy Lane, this clearly is a lobbying attempt that the residents of Black Boy Lane are unable to defend and in today's lock down, are legally unable to gather to lobby for support.

This in a "democratic" society.

The "2500 Tottenham residents" presumably means the same thing as in the emailed letter posted on HoL by Hugh Flouch.  In other words we're talking about the recent membership of Tottenham Constituency Labour Party. The number may sound high but that's what happened when Corbyn became leader. And it was roughly half the recent membership of the Hornsey Wood Green Constituency Party. (I'm out of date so both figures may have shrunk a bit with Starmer.)

I don't know if Haringey staff would be able to detect a fake postcode. If they can't detect them the whole thing seems more shambolic than ever. Your point about Covid-19 is undeniable and has been made in different ways by many people. It's grossly insensitive and unfeeling to drive this decision through right now.

This incompetent, badly timed and poorly run consultation could end up damaging trust and creating bad feeling. Surely the exact opposite of what we want and need in our borough and across London.

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