Renaming, Politically Correctly

THE U.S.S. JOHN C. STENNIS, a huge, nuclear powered, fully loaded Nimitz class aircraft carrier, is going to get a name change. The vessel is halfway through its estimated, planned fifty year life. Considering the billions of dollars it took to build it, one might hope that its lifespan can eventually be extended, given high quality TLC, beyond expectations, assuming the United States navy still exists twenty five years from now. These days, one can assume nothing. Considering that it costs at least a million dollars a day to operate it and most other giant aircraft carriers, perhaps its seemiingly relatively short life span is a blessing, if in disguise. The Stennis was commissioned in 1998, and named after the long serving, venerable Democratic Senator from Mississippi, who is credited for having promulgated and pushed through Congress much of the legislation which greatly increased the size and firepower of the American navy in the ninteen sixties. Senator Stennis was and is indeed considered among the "fathers" or the modern U.S. Navy. So, the ship's name is appropriate, in a very relevant way. In anohter very relevant way it name is singularly innapropriate, a way which was not being considered as recently as the late nineteen ninietiesand the turn of the millennium. Namely, despite his ong an generally distinguished career in teh Senate Joehn C. Stennis was, nonetheless,a strict, staunch racial segregationist. He firmly believed that white people and black people should live and work in the same country, but in different neighborhoods, schools, and businesses, completely separate from eath other. His reasoning was essentially the same tired, pedestrian logic of most modern racists: whether white is superior to black in any way, shape, or form is irrelevant. The fundamental cultural and racial dfferences between the two races are so profound and irreconcilable that to attempt to integrate them is pointless, doomed to failure after much needless blood, sweat, tears, striving, and suffering. To many people of his generation, this reasoning was sound and solid, borne out by history and current events, dead raist wrong that we now know it to have been and to still be. At the root, Stennis and all crackers and honkies who embrace(d) this nonsense were and are white supremicists, although they do not enphasize that aspect of their biased character. The white supremacy part they have cleverly replaced with "separate but equal", which is itself of course bogus, a cover story for racial hatred. I don't think the U.S.S. Stennis's new name has yet been decided or revealed. Perhaps it will be renamed after some heroic African-American social reformer-crusader or military hero. This has been a growing trend of late. The best way would be for the American peple to dceide by voting on it, but that'll never happen. For one thing, it would be too much fun, and for another, the Republcians would doubtless vigorously oppose it, perhaps by trying to either steal the election, or by organizing another violent mob,including the January 6th Insurrection veterans who are not yet in prison, and once again, as they are doing in so many venues and ways, and have done so many times already, thwart democracy.