Don't banish our Founding Fathers

But once in a while we discover a quote from Matt Groening's animated sitcom that parodies our American culture. In season 13, Seymour Skinner, Bart Simpson's principal, shared this personal remark over the school intercom about the lunch menu at Springfield Elementary: "And in a gutless act of political correctness, 'Pizza Day' will now be known as 'Italian-American Sauced Bread Day.' "

The butt of that comment was of course the political correctness running amok in society.

We recall these gems in our recent history:

• School blackboards being renamed "chalkboards" to avoid offending black people;

• To avoid using the word "Christmas," schools or non-Christian groups having a "holiday tree" every "Winter Holiday Season";

• Manholes being renamed "Personnel Access Units" to avoid offending women.

• American public schools in California and other Western states banning clothing depicting the American flag.

The flag/clothing issue is a frequent source of contention in California, especially in the Bay area. Earlier this year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill effectively barring public schools from using the term "Redskin," making California the first state to ban the team name or mascot.

Six years ago, school administrators in the town of Morgan Hill, just south of San Francisco, sent five students home after they refused to remove their American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican Day of Independence.

Officials feared the clothing with patriotic imagery could cause an incident with Mexican groups since there had been gang-related tensions and racially charged confrontations between white and Hispanic students at the school.

The censored students later brought a civil rights suit against the school and two administrators, arguing that their rights to freedom of expression, equal protection and due process had been violated. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and in May 2015, the high court left intact an appeals court ruling that school officials in California did not violate the free speech rights of students by demanding they remove their U.S. flag T-shirts.

Just last week, San Francisco again began a center for controversy when Matt Haney, president of the school board, said he wanted to change the names of any of the city's schools that are named after slave owners such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. He said he got the idea after hearing the Rev. Amos Brown, a Baptist minister, referenced Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and then also seeing San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick protest by not standing for the national anthem at his football games.

Haney also said he was ashamed that his high school displayed a mural of George Washington with slaves. His attack on the father of our country received mixed feedback.

Ray Shanahan responded on Haney's professional Facebook account: "Please think long and hard before changing the name of George Washington High School. Of course slavery was wrong and our forefathers had accepted it. But condemning our first president and father of our country is almost blasphemy. If so, every president prior to Lincoln is guilty."

That's a valid point.

Research shows that 12 of our 43 presidents owned slaves, and eight of them owned slaves while serving as president. Zachary Taylor was the last sitting president to own slaves.

The last president who ever owned slaves was, ironically, Ulysses S. Grant, who commanded Union forces to victory over the Confederacy in the war that led to the abolition of slavery. The 850-acre Grant farm in Missouri is now the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, part of the National Park Service.

Any school or municipal official looking to change our history better take a long, hard look before considering such action. It's true that our first presidents were slave owners but this reflected the mores of the time. In 1787 one out of every five Americans was an African slave.

Banning the names of this nation's forefathers won't change our history.

We certainly can't ignore the achievements of the Founding Fathers or the first presidents who, in leading us in a War of Independence and then through bloody Civil War, helped forge this nation into the greatest country on earth.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com