Plan To Honor Mark Twain Scrapped Over Racism Claim

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mark-twainA state panel has effectively killed a bid to name a Lake Tahoe cove for Mark Twain, citing opposition from a tribe that says he held racist views on Native Americans.

The Nevada State Board on Geographic Names this week voted to indefinitely table the request after hearing opposition from the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, whose ancestral homeland includes Lake Tahoe.

Supporters had sought to name a scenic cove on the lake’s northeast shore for Samuel Clemens, Twain’s real name.

But Darrel Cruz, head of the tribe’s cultural resource department, said Twain was undeserving of the honor because of derogatory comments about the Washoe and other tribes in his writings.

Among other things, he cited Twain’s opposition to the naming of the lake as Tahoe, which is derived from the Washoe word “da ow” for lake.

Cruz also objected to a Twain quote about Lake Tahoe: “People say that Tahoe means ‘Silver Lake’ – ‘Limpid Water’ – ‘Falling Leaf.’ Bosh! It means grasshopper soup, the favorite dish of the digger tribe – and of the Pi-utes as well.”

Cruz said Washoes dislike being referred to as the “digger tribe,” a derogatory term applied to some tribes in the West who dug roots for food. Other tribes ate grasshoppers.

Read more at FOX NEWS.

{Matzav.com Newscenter}


6 COMMENTS

  1. Mark Twain is one of the most established writers of all time. If you hate him, go fly a kite. On second thought, let the kite fly you too. You wont be very American.

  2. The thought police are taking over every aspect of this country, and we ignore it at our own peril.

    The same way that anti-toeivah and private speech – albeit disgusting – have been relegated beyond the pale, so one day will pro-Israel and/or anti-Palestinian speech.

    Wake up, Yidden.

  3. He was also a big antisemite. He wrote one paragraph which everyone quotes, but they don’t quote the previous 10 pages that precede it in which he spews hate.

  4. Davethemave… I have never heard this before… can you show me a source?

    reality check… kind of the same way as Jewish opposition to zionism is silenced?

  5. Mark Twain treated jews as if they were someone he did not completely understand in their ways and clearly that is how most gentiles will react to a community of Laws and Trust in G-d that they are not privy to the common place of living in the same changing community. Ultimately, though I did not read enough of Mark Twain already, I think he was a very friendly mind and had a lot of friends. He did not do this by antisemitism and hatred. You can filter through Mark Twain by understanding the time of human events in which he was strewn with his own discipline and the discipline of human values of that day and age. He is not an antisemite as far as I can tell, but I would say that he was indeed very fascinated by the jewish world and the jewish neshama which he clearly only could see from a far. There is no reason to limit your children from reading some of the most very valued books of all time.

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