Rename that school!

After a black woman!

With considerably less anticipation than a shipwrecked husband on his honeymoon night, the Head Groundskeeper awaits the renaming of three more public schools Monday 08-24-26 here in Woke City, Wisconsin.

Renaming public schools is the latest Woke Madison fetish, now that the city has overcome its sense of white fragility to bend a knee for Corey Ruiz. It’s hard work, requiring “work groups” and multiple “ad hoc” meetings. Expensive, too, for a profligate school district always pleading poverty: $30,000 a pop. The envelope, please:

1) Conrad Elvehjem was the University of Wisconsin biochemist who discovered niacin, which cured a pernicious disease. But he bought a house in Madison that, somewhere in the small print of the sales deed back in the unenlightened 1930s, lurked a restrictive covenant. OFF WITH HIS NAME! Contenders for the new name of the east-side elementary school are “Ada Deer,” “Capitol View,” “Jeffrey Clay Erlanger,” and “Stephanie A. Bernard.” All considerably less distinguished than the former university president and none of them Norwegian.

2) Charles Lindbergh attended the UW-Madison. But the daring aviator was an American Firster before WW2 — as were many Americans, including JFK’s old man. Ada Deer, a Menomonie, and Jeff Erlanger, a disabled man, are again in the running for that school’s new name. So are “Sandhill Crane” (not familiar with him/her) and “Waruha” — said to mean “Firefly” in one language or another.

3) Back in the ’60s, Caesar Chavez kept us wondering if grapes should be eaten or boycotted. Allegations of improper sexual relations against the patron saint of stoop labor surfaced earlier this year, 33 years after the man’s decease. Now that Mr. Chavez is not able to defend himself, the Madison elementary school bearing his name must be re-imagined. In the running: “Roberto G. Sánchez,” “Maple Grove,” “Ice Age Trail,” and “DeJope,” on whose stolen land the school most defiantly squats.

No country for old white men

Thomas Jefferson middle school was renamed for one Ezekiel Gillespie three years ago. (Not to be confused with former Milwaukee Braves broadcaster Earl Gillespie.) Southside elementary is now Lori Mann Carey elementary. Not a whole lot to say about Lori, except that her name is on a school. Glendale elementary was renamed for the late Virginia Henderson, described as “a strong black woman.”

History records that Velma Hamilton founded the local NAACP. Her name replaces that of Charles Van Hise, the UW president and “Fighting Bob” La Follette ally who championed The Wisconsin Idea. But, like a lot of progressives of the time, he believed in eugenics. A longtime school district superintendent named Philip Falk gave way to Milele Chikasa Anana. (Me neither.) Another dead white guy, James Madison, is now Vel Phillips Memorial high school. (How long before the city is renamed, too?)

Notice something: No White Man Need Apply (unless you are disabled or queer as a $3 bill). A letter to Mr. Editor from a perspicacious observer instructs:

“If you dig down, you will find something that is objectionable to someone else in every single human being, especially if you are using the woke Madison standards of the 21st century.” — Patrick O’Loughlin, Madison WI

→ Syed Mustajab Abbas is running for mayor of Madison. A former alder. April Kiyega is rumored. She is a former county supervisor. Mayor Satya has already declared.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Maybe Madison Metro Schools should emulate New York City schools and just number them. PS #4 rules!

Better yet, name after famous students in fictive literature! Their back story is known and static. “Holden Caulfield” would be a natural rebuke to the phonies. David Copperfield survived the ruthless headmaster of his boarding school. Marty McFly took on bullies and changed history itself. Ferris Bueller took the day off. Dobie Gillis had many loves. You want ethnics? Could do worse than The Fonz. Give Horschack from Welcome Back Kotter! his due. Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. The girls in Clueless seem appropriate. Problem is, they’re all white as Wonder Bread.

Huck Finn is out because of his prodigious use of the N word, but how about naming a school after his runaway slave?

How does “Jim Middle School” sound?