Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Council Decides to Rename Black Boy Lane
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:
- Online: www.haringey.gov.uk/renaming-black-boy-lane.
- Email:
- bblconsultation@haringey.gov.uk
- Telephone: 020 8489 3797
- By post: Consultation Co-ordinator, The Communications Team, River Park House, 225 High Road, Wood Green, London, N22 8HQ
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.
If you'd like to respond to this post, please consider the sensitivities around the issues before you commit finger to keyboard. Any responses that are not in line with our house rules will be deleted.
Tags for Forum Posts: blackboy lane name change, review on monuments, building place and street names
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by James on
-
I know of one council outside of London, that when it wishes to pass something like this it knows the local population will not vote for. It puts it on the net for a public vote with very biased information. with no blocks, So ends up with most voters not locally and can vot more than once.
The BBL vote does not look secure ( seems anyone can put a BBL address). Unless there is a secure system most votes could well be from ouside the area, who just see the very biased council informationn and have no idea the locals do not want it. Infact an open vote means a school class of 40 in Africa, China, Cuba or Russia can all vote,saying they live in the area, just going on what the very biased council informationn by the vote states.
Thats why councils love unsecure net voting.
-
Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
-
This week The Hackney Gazette reports on the change of name for Tyssen Community School across the border in Stamford Hill. The Gazette reports that this followed Hackney Council's "Review, Rename, Reclaim project".
https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/tyssen-school-name-change-732...
I need to find time to download and read this review closely. But my impression from the Gazette's report in June 2020 is that Hackney began by setting up the review and tried to take residents with them. instead of starting top-down by dictating the outcome.
https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/local-council/hackney-public-...
In 1983 when I came to live with Zena Brabazon in Tottenham, people often said that whatever criticisms they had of Haringey Council it was never, never as bad as Hackney. How times change.
-
-
Just read this on the BruceGroveLTN comments page...
"Can the Council replace the road signs (street names) in the area where they are completely ruined and often unreadable? It looks terrible and brings down the area for what is surely a very quick fix. Just makes the whole place feel uncared for and that attitude precipitates in the community. An easy win for the Council!"
Is this not something where money is needed abd that would benefit everyone?
-
-
Hackney council "failed" during the Blair era and was "taken over” by central government for a while. It was then known as “the worst run place in Britain.”
It then benefitted from Labour’s all round, increased investment with Mayor Kenny et al during the “Things are going to get better years”.
The borough, of course, also borders on the City and has also especially benefited from spill over gentrification from the City as well as Islington and Camden boroughs plus.
Selected and selective xtracts from the linked article include….
“But economic deprivation does not explain all or, at least, not the most recent problems. 'There's simply been a failure of political culture in Hackney,' says Jules Pipe of the Labour Group who, with his Tory colleague Eric Ollerenshaw, now leads the council. He points at a split in Labour in 1996, when more than a dozen Labour members left the party. 'You will never get to the bottom of that split. It was just two groups of people who mutually hated each other.”
“Labour and the Conservatives have decided to co-operate - shoving the Lib Dems into opposition - and so there is now a form of political stability for the first time in four years. 'Under Max Caller and his new team we also have management in place which has finally been able to identify the problems,' he says.”
Reminds me in some ways of somewhere I know very well.
-
-
JJ B-
Maybe there's a lot more to be learned from Hackney. In fact I'm certain there's much to learn from many other London boroughs and cities elsewhere.
In this instance I was focusing on what seems to have been Hackney's efforts to take the positive themes of an "inclusive" borough for all its residents. And to campaign and persuade people to consider and discuss and compromise and work together to achieve this. Now wouldn't that be a dream worth chasing?
Bit maybe I'm wrong and have fallen for Hackney's PR? If so, at least their stated model seems to have been on the right lines. When Haringey says we are committed to consultation then, hey, let's really consult. And do it fairly and transparently at a time when residents can fully participate and have access to all the facts they need. Followed by an honest acceptance of the public outcome of the consultation process.
But let's not follow Donald Trump's autocratic example. For example by looking for a few thousand extra votes perhaps to ensure the count goes how someone wants.
Nor should we have the process controlled by the occupier of what in the United States is called a "bully pulpit". Dictionary definition: "An exceptionally advantageous position from which to extol one's own ideas". More Trump-like practice.By all means let's try to face up to the crimes and tragedies of the past. Including taking down statues of slavers. Honouring instead those who have served principled causes and communities as a model for today and the future. But let's do it openly in sunlight and fresh air.
_____________________________
Many decades ago I learned a principle from feminists: "How you do it is what you get."
Or you can follow Trump's path destroying trust and undermining democracy.
-
-
@Alan S
Frankly, Haringey Borough has made strides since I first arrived here; and I don't think that it is as bad now as Hackney, or Lambeth, for that matter, were back then - I lived in Brixton all those years ago when Heather Rabbatts had to be called in to "clean the rot" that had set in during the Thatcher/Major years but under a Labour council. https://tinyurl.com/16be2ww2
The present Haringey regime is certainly better than the previous regime of people who ran off to work for big property developers as soon as they lost their power and so showing up their real values.
We have seen some improvement in committment to solve problems. It is just so unfortunate that this change of attitude happened at a time when resources i.e. central gov't funding has became ever more stretched.
I am also not comfortable with ANY regime that gives preference to dogmatic kow towing to ideology over practical solutions that acknowledge the reality on the ground.
But enough of the politico-philiosophical debate....
-
-
Which is better Claire or Joe?
Which authoritarian regime would you prefer to demolish your home or business premises?
Perhaps JJ B you might give a little more scrutiny to the "practical solutions"?
-
Permalink Reply by Brian Ahearne on
-
Instead of interpreting Black Boy Lane as offensive, can’t it be a celebration of young black males?, The movement for naming and renaming things after people many will not know or bother to remember, when it could be named in consideration of people who so often face prejudice. It seems a missed opportunity to challenge everyday racism by renaming Black Boy Lane which could be seen as dishonouring young black males. In fact it may even seem to endorse everyday racism.
-
Permalink Reply by Gina Fenton on
-
Surely more recent residents should be honoured in contemporary streets, monuments, districts or housing blocks as they are built? It is wrong to re-write local history especially in spurious grounds which are not evidenced in fact but being whipped up by a ‘Woke’ minority. There is NO firm evidence that this name is ‘linked to the slave trade’. It goes back to the 1690s and by far the more likely source is that it indicated the Black Boy pub supported the royalist cause and it was named after King Charles II. Apparently he was of Moorish descent (some claim he was a black man himself, of African descent).
https://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egypti...
Surely the facts should be properly investigated before re-writing history in this way?
I am very frustrated that there are now so many replies on this that the facts are being lost and it is really dangerous for a shouty minority to be re-writing history on spurious grounds.
-
Permalink Reply by Hugh on
-
The history, written by Bruce Castle Museum, can be read via my first link in the first line of the original post.
-
-
Indeed it can be read there. And I have. It includes the words ‘There are strong associations connecting this name to the slave trade’. But I do not see these associations included in the text, unless they are references to the wealthy black residents who left money for the poor etc. It is possible they were freed slaves or the descendants of freed slaves, but I don’t think it says that.
It’s also important for Haringet residents to be aware of the context if it was recognising Charles II. Here was a King of African descent restored to the throne after a Civil War, the execution of the Monarch (regard at the time as God incarnate by many), and more than a decade of dictatorship by Oliver Cromwell. These were HUGE events. When finally restored to the throne there was still widespread division but the Black Boy was a hugely popular figure welcomed back by many. So this really isn’t a negative story about black people in any way.
-
Permalink Reply by Adrian Hackney on
-
I hesitated to criticise the historical piece, but now the thought has been put into words, I completely agree.
The sentence ‘There are strong associations connecting this name to the slave trade’ is an assertion. There were no supporting references to back this up.
When I was a student there would often be clues from lecturers leading up to an exam - "If you want to get a good mark, you must mention . . . . ". The inclusion of this assertion reminds me of that.
This assertion is no more convincing than Cllr Ejiofor's that 'black boy' is most commonly now used as an insult.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
