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
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Permalink Reply by Nick Eftychiou on
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I agree with maidkins. At the moment the issue is the changing of BBL which is what this thread started as. As far as changing the political system in Haringey then fight that but don't mix the 2. I agree that when this thread started it was clear what it was but then it changed to left, right, the political system and the BBL seems to have been pushed aside. At the moment me personally just care and want the name change to be halted. Anything else can be dealt with later
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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But that is precisely what you yourself have done in posts on this subject. One example below
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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It's plain that the renaming of Black Boy Lane could have been and can be decided as a single stand-alone proposal. In other words a Change-the-name Yes/No involving only residents and businesses along that road.
But just as plainly, the official published information from the Council - inadequate and possibly incorrect it seems - explicitly linked it to several wider issues.
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Osbawn - Sorry if I was unclear.
Trying to be a bit clearer, I wrote 'could'. Not 'should' or ‘must'. But if there were some "musts" then at minimum it was absurd & unfair to pretend to have a "consultation" which began with the outcome. And then stumbling-on. Making probably every mistake in a notional good-consultation handbook from undated letters, to lack of translation, to apparent failure to include every address along a long but not impossibly long road.
Also just to say, Osbawn, that I was responding to the suggestion that discussion should have stayed with the Black Boy Lane renaming proposal and not widened out to other issues such as Black Lives Matter.
I pointed out that the "political" issues were not shoved in by people commenting here. They were there at the start of this process - in Joe Ejiofor's and the other letters and on the Council website.
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And if we want to think about wider issues, can I recommend a videoed discussion from 2018 presented by the organisation "Intelligence Squared". But don't be put-off by the pretentious name. It was full of lively and informed viewpoints on topics including statues, slavery, and re-learning the history of racism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoC2ioaQUQU
The event was pre-Covid and so the four speakers could challenge & debate issues face-to-face. The live audience made some useful and interesting points. The speakers were Afua Hirsch and David Olusoga - who impress me more each time I watch them. Plus Peter Frankopan and Tiffany Jenkins - new to me but also thought provoking.
If you haven't got time to watch the whole video, I suggest dipping-in. You'll probably stay longer.
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Afua Hirsch would find racism in an Irish Coffee, her and Olusoga's issues are anti-British and anti-white, I rarely hear mention (if at all) of slavery by the plethora of other nations involved, especially the brutality of some Middle Eastern nations of which Hirsch probably has distant roots. Sadly, the full story is rarely told, if it is it will be rejected because it might dilute the inverted racist agenda and spoil the pick 'n mix history that suits our gutter MSM exploited to the full by the leftist academia and spoon-fed to their banner-waving student acolytes.
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Hi Xavier - As far as I recall, nobody in this discussion thread or elsewhere on HoL suggested that certain people's views are always correct or the only ones allowed to "set an agenda".
I'm far too old to be a "banner-waving student acolyte" of anyone. I very much appreciate the role of Harringay Online in giving a platform for people to post a wide range of opinions. My own experience is that time taken to listen to alternative viewpoints and suggestions usually improves judgements and outcomes. (I wish that Joe Ejiofor would listen to this view.)
Maybe in a few years I may need some kind person literally to "spoon-feed" me if I have trouble doing it. But right now I value the opportunity to hear and read the widest range of different opinions and voices. I share links to free stuff online which I've found useful or interesting. Not because it's "required reading" on some course. You don't agree with it? Fine. I'm still curious and learning. And hope some other people may be the same.
I use only my real name and a real photo - though it needs updating. So it's easy to skip over.
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What a hateful post
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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At the start of last week I was forwarded an email sent to the Leader of the Council on this issue. It was written from the Padmore Institute, which was founded by John La Rose.
I didn't want to publish the letter without getting the nod from the author/s. I wrote formally to request permission.
This morning I have been given that permission on the condition that the email is published in its entirety.
It is copied below. You will see why I thought it important to publish.
Dear Cllr Ejiofor
The George Padmore Institute has been aware for a few weeks now that there is a Haringey Council consultation currently taking place over the renaming of Black Boy Lane, London N17, and that the two names the residents have been asked to select from are Jocelyn Barrow Lane and La Rose Lane. Sarah White, who is the Secretary of the George Padmore Institute Board of Trustees, and the partner of the late John La Rose, has kept the Trustees informed of her correspondence with you on the matter, of various online discussion forums that she has been made aware of and of other public comments and information.
John La Rose was the founding Chairman of the George Padmore Institute and the renaming proposal was discussed at our recent AGM and Trustees Meeting, held on 25 October 2020. We wish to inform you and the Haringey councillors that the Trustees do not support the renaming proposal in its present form and would not support the use of John La Rose‘s name in the current proposal.
Our main reasons are the following:
- We feel the renaming proposal, in the way it has been conceived and is being carried out, is not one which John himself would have supported, nor is it in tune with his vision of the importance of people having access to and knowledge of all their history so that they can then make their own independent judgements.
- It is clear that the renaming proposal was not serious because (a) John La Rose’s’ closest family and friends were not consulted in advance, and (b) the biographical note presented to residents about who John La Rose was, and why he should be honoured in this way, was flimsy, shoddy and tokenistic.
- We also understand that there is a considerable cost in changing the name of a road and we feel that, at a time like this, when there are so many other more urgent calls on the Council’s finances, it is inappropriate to be spending money in this way.
- The name change will be a bureaucratic inconvenience to residents of Black Boy Lane.
- There has been a lack of communication, openness and clear justification for such a change in the Council literature on the renaming process.
- If you, or any other (Haringey) councillors are interested in learning about the range and depth of John La Rose’s life achievements, the George Padmore Institute would be very happy to assist you. The entry on ‘La Rose, John Anthony’ in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography might be a useful place for you to make a start.
Yours
Roxy Harris
Chairperson of the George Padmore Institute (on behalf of the trustees)"
George Padmore Institute
76 Stroud Green Road
Finsbury Park
London
N4 3EN
020 7272 8915
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Hi Hugh. Do you have permission to forward this to Haringey Council?
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At the time the email was originally sent, it was openly copied to all Haringey Councillors.
As far as I am concerned, Roxy gave permission for the email to be made public. So, if there is someone in the council outside of the elected body to whom you would like to forward it, I think it is reasonable to assume that you have implied permission.
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Hugh, I am grateful for your sensitivity in asking for permission before posting this letter.
The George Padmore Institute had copied it to councillors.
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