Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
It will only ever be Black Boy Lane
I'm still shaking my head at this. The Council has spent so much on something noone wants. I don't know why the English don't stand up to this sort of thing. It would never happen in Turkey or Greece. This guy sums it up perfectly.
Tags for Forum Posts: blackboy lane name change
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gordon Farcas on
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Cem - Your last point sums it up perfectly! Well said.
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Excellent points all. Sadly the various angry whackadoodles are likely to have none of it.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Funny but that particular street name has been popping into my head throughout this thread Eric. For those unfamiliar there was a street with variations on this name in many large towns and cities in England but they were all changed to things like Grape Street.
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Eric — The £180,000 came from council officers as the likely total cost in the minutes of the council cabinet discussion in 2021, available online; I haven’t seen a Daily Mail report, so it may have been exaggerated subsequently. Budget allocation is always a political decision, so there’s no reason why this money couldn’t have been spent on alleviating current hardship instead. In published figures, most residents of BBL itself who responded to the consultation did not want the name changed. The majority who did were shown as being elsewhere in Haringey (excluding St Ann’s ward itself).
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Hello Eric
I have a couple of thoughts in response to your own on this.
1.This is certainly not the first time a street name has been changed, and it will almost certainly not be the last time. There is stuff to discuss about these changes, but they are not huge dramas.
You are correct. Road names are occasionally changed. I don't think anyone would object to the principle of changing the name of a road if it was necessary such as when old names now have a profane meaning or if the person after which a road was named turned out to be a Jimmy Saville or someone equally horrible. The issue here is the rationale behind it and the way the council has gone about it. The rationale provided by the council was that the name needed to be changed "in response to the BLM movement" and because some people think the name might have racist connotations.
Why did they feel a need to 'respond' to BLM? That movement was in response to the unjustified killing of a black man in America by police officers. The issues were about the use of force by police and the way black men are treated by police in America. I accept that the movement grew and came to mean something to everyone but those core issues have nothing to do with Black Boy Lane. The need to 'respond' looks like nothing more than a public display of virtue.
Now about the racist connotations. It is known and accepted that the road was named after the pub which was in turn named after Charles II or chimney sweeps. Anyone who moved here nearly 400 years afterwards and who might initially have wondered about the nomenclature used should surely by now know that nobody is calling black men 'boy' and that the word has an entirely different and non racial historical meaning.
The link to racial connotations is even more obscure when you consider that the use of that word only really has any social/cultural relevance in the US where it was used until relatively recently to belittle and dehumanise black men. In that context the name would be abhorent. If Black Boy Lane was somewhere on a street sign in the US today I would protest doggedly until it was removed. However, in the UK the name of the road has an entirely different meaning steeped in an entirely different historical context.
If anyone wrote to the council and expressed concerns about the name the sensible and decent thing would have been for the councillors to write back and say don't worry it doesn't mean that here. The fact that they didn't do that reinforces the suspicion that the councillors in question saw it as an opportunity to signal virtue.
2. Some people are arguing that the name was not regarded as offensive in the 17th century. This is probably true. But it is hard to see how it is relevant, unless somebody wants to propose as a general principle that the standards of the 17th century are appropriate to the present.
I think I have read nearly every post on this subject (and written many myself) and haven't seen anyone argue that the name isn't offensive now because it wasn't offensive then. Clearly some names from the past are offensive today as you have noted elsewhere. However, in this case the name genuinely isn't offensive and a simple explanation to that effect would have avoided a lot of distraction, division, money and unnecessary attention on our borough from the twittersphere.
3. Always be suspicious of people who call upon the category of "heritage." What they are really saying is that some people can be recognised and affirmed through the attribution of "heritage" and others cannot.
I don't agree. There is nothing wrong with being patriotic and cherishing one's heritage (or even not being patriotic but still cherishing one's heritage). It doesn't mean we're saying we are superior to anyone else or that other people's heritage is not equally valuable. Heritage is what shaped us, it is where we come from, it gives us a sense of cultural belonging. It comes from the heart and is deep set. In recent times the English and other Europeans have been challenged to value and respect other cultures more. Thats fair enough but we deserve to be able to value our own as well. It is in that context that there is oposition to the renaming of parks and roads and the demonisation of national heros such as Churchill and Rhodes.
I wouldn't mind if the council wanted to name a new road or erect a statue to recognise La Rose but I do object to part of English heritage being removed to do so. This is the 'erasure' of heritage to which so many people object.
4. The money argument seems to come from a maximum estimate that the council requested at one point which was then amplified by the Daily Mail. There is no doubt that the change had some cost. Most of this cost seems to involve helping residents of the street adjust to change. In any case, it if were not spent on this there is no reason to believe that it would have gone for 300,000 school meals or whatever. That's not how budgets work.
The £180,000 was the figure provided by the council. It encompasses the £50k for an employee to handle the admin and the remainder was to compensate the residents of Black Boy Lane for the administrative nightmare of changing their address with every service provider and public body they deal with. It's bound to be an underestimate of the eventual actual cost (perhaps an FOI in a years time would confirm) There are many flats, multi generational households and HMOs on Black Boy Lane both official and otherwise. There was no mention of the costs related to contractors replacing the signs (multiple times if the residents and others keep removing and defacing/correcting them). There are also other costs to the broader public purse (TFL announcements, printed materials such as bus signs and timetables, admin at Chestnuts school and all the people across public bodies who are changing databases and updating addresses). There are press officers at Haringey council writing and issuing releases and coming up with other text to justify the changes to all sorts of publications. But what is most galling is the opportunity cost. What else could have been done with that money and with the time of the people who have been involved in organising this? Youth workers, teaching assistants, care home worker compensation, pot holes plus a plaque about Mr La Rose!)
5. It does look like the procedure should have been a lot more open and transparent than it was. But this doesn't justify the exaggerated claims people make about how "all residents" opposed the change.
You can see the actual responses online of people on Black Boy Lane who responded to the consultation. They're broken down by ethnicity. The majority are opposed and particularly those who identify themselves as Black people. If there really was a concern about the name of the road its logical that any offence would be felt most acutely by those exposed to it every day.
Now I don't know whether those responses were made by people who really do live on Black Boy Lane. I can imagine its very easy for someone in other parts of Haringey, London or anywhere else in the world to respond to such surveys using fake data. For all we know, a large slab or the survey responses were actually made by college students in the US or by an angry man or woman making multiple reponses or even by the councillors themselves or council employees.
The only survey responses that could realistically be validated againt actual names (without disproportionate effort) are those made by residents of Black Boy Lane who appear on the electoral roll and or pay council tax.
I am only pointing these things out because, as the interest of the "Daily Mail" noted above suggests, our little neighbourhood is becoming the object of the unwanted attention of lots of extremists, conspiracy theorists, lizard botherers, and whackadoodles.
True. However, the extremists, conspiracy theorists, lizard botheres and whackadoodles (both for an against the renaming) are only responding to the highly controversial decision made by the council. Haringey has always been a by-word for bad local government and now it's managed to make that reputation a global one.
Phew!
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Permalink Reply by Geraldine on
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I agree, Livi. Brian put a lot of thought and care into what he has written. Good to read them. Thank you, Brian.
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Of course anyone who objects to the name change is a raving racist. Uncle Joe says so.
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The man who started it all!
It's hard to say anything about him that isn't very negative. Let's just say I'm glad he was removed and that he can do no more damage to our community.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Request made by Daniel Anderson to Haringey Council via the free website What Do They Know.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/costs_associated_with_the_ch...
"It has been stated that the costs to change the name of Black Boy Lane N15 to La Rose Lane N15 are somewhere between £180,000 and £189,000.
"Can you please say
"1) how much the name change has cost?
2) how many street signs have been changed?
2) provide a breakdown of the cost expenditure?
3) a) indicate how many consultancies have been involved, b) what they were each paid and c) name them?
4) a) why the original name 'Black Boy Lane' has been included on the new name plates, and b) whether it is intended to remove the name at some future point, if so c) at what additional cost?"
Haringey has acknowledged the request.
Disgracefully the Council has added its usual attempt to prevent further circulation of the reply in a paragraph which pretends it will be "confidential". [Please see text below]. This appear to be the usual attempt to chill discussion. And in my view is a symptom of a culture of secrecy and a denial of both the Nolan Principles of Public Life and the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act.Text:
"This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential, may be subject to legal privilege and are intended only for the person(s) ororganisation(s) to whom this email is addressed. Any unauthorised use, retention, distribution, copying or disclosure is strictly prohibited." -
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You know that's just a standard email footer for external email common to loads of organisations and nothing to do with some massive conspiracy by the Council against the rest of us.
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Permalink Reply by Rosamund Tomlins on
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Oh come now, Alan, you know that that's just to cover themselves legally in case Daniel Anderson or someone complains about lack of privacy, re GDPR legislation. They did their advised necessary bit for that, but it certainly doesn't stop sharing or discussion does it? Do let us know if the men in black appear to be knocking at your door.
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