Success! Memphis Parks No Longer Racist, Just Boring.

LOL NOT FOR LONG

Earlier today, we reflected on Councilman Myron Lowery's proposal to add the name of Ida B. Wells to Nathan Bedford Forrest Park, because those two would really have enjoyed hanging out with each other in life, probably. (No.) Well, the City Council met and things got real pissy, they did:

Councilman Myron Lowery wants civil rights activist Ida B. Wells' name to be added to Forrest Park. "I'm not trying to rewrite history. I'm not trying to change history. And I don't think anybody in this room needs a history lesson," he said.
Based on the banter in the room, Nathan Bedford Forrest was either a great general and a swell guy after the war, or a slave trading racist. 

Yeah, he was a slave trading racist.

City Councilwoman Janis Fullilove believes Forrest was evil, and said maybe the park's name should be changed to honor a slave who slaughtered white slave owners in the 1800's. "I would like to move to rename that park Nat Turner Park. Because Forrest hated black people, and Turner hated white people," she suggested. 

Janis, I do believe that suggestion went over the heads of half the people in the room.

As [a sane person] spoke, H.K. Edgerton, an African American who goes around the country talking about the good things about the Confederacy, couldn't hold his feelings in. "Lies!" he exclaimed. Neither could Lee Millar of the group Sons of Confederate Veterans. "Forrest was known as a very humane slave trader," he said, "He never split families." 

OH THAT MAKES IT ALL BETTER. Your Effin' Memphis has a really long piece rolling around in his head right now, where we address the issue of race in this city, but we're just going to put this out there right now:

Dear Some White People:

When you talk about how some slaves loved their masters, or how they didn't split up families, or about how "Well, the Africans sold their own people into slavery!" as if that would have happened if there hadn't been incredibly willing white buyers in 'Murika, or about how the Civil War was about "state's rights," or about how you have no problem with your black neighbors they keep their yards so nice, as if it's some sort of refreshing surprise, YOU SOUND EVEN MORE RACIST. Stop it. Now.

Sincerely,

Effin' Memphis

So anyway, now the parks are going to be renamed, as nine City Council members voted to get ahead of a state proposal that would disallow cities from changing the names of parks that honor "war heroes." For the moment, the parks will have the following boring names:

Forrest Park will be Health and Sciences Park, Confederate Park will be Memphis Park, and Jefferson Davis Park will be the Mississippi River Park. 

Fine. Effin' Memphis readers, feel free to come up with witty suggestions for new names for these Memphis parks, names that are NOT SO PHENOMENALLY RACIST.