Some Quebec rivers, lakes may be renamed to drop racial epithet

(Editor's Note: this story contains language that may offend
some readers)
By Allison Lampert
MONTREAL, Aug 10 (Reuters) - As the United States debates
public display of the Confederate battle flag, the Canadian
province of Quebec is considering changing the names of 11
locations, including lakes and rapids, that contain a racial
epithet.
The Quebec Toponymy Commission, which manages place names in
the mostly French-language province, is due to meet later this
year to discuss whether to rename sites like Nigger Rapids, a
stretch of the Gatineau River about 120 kilometers north of
Ottawa, said Julie Letourneau, a spokeswoman for the commission.
"The commission is very sensitive to what is happening
around us and people's perceptions," said Letourneau.
According to a Canadian Broadcasting Corp report, the rapids
were named in memory of a black couple who drowned there in the
early 1900s.
The CBC quoted Jean-Pierre LeBlanc, a spokesman for the
commission, as saying, "It was meant to describe the people who
died. There was no pejorative connotation then as there is now."
The June 17 shooting of nine black people inside a South
Carolina church by a white man who had been photographed with
the Confederate flag triggered a debate over public display of
the U.S. civil war relic. The flag is considered by many to be a
symbol of slavery and racism. ID:nL1N1021Q1
Charmaine Nelson, an art historian who teaches about slavery
at McGill University in Montreal, said she has mixed feelings
about changing the place names.
Nelson said that while the term "nigger" is deeply
offensive, these names also serve as a reminder that slavery
existed in Canada. "It you start to wipe out these place names,
it makes it easier to say it didn't happen here."
According to the CBC report, the commission has recognized
six place names that include the N-word in English and five that
include the word nègre, which in French can mean both Negro and
the N-word.
The report cited a commission reference to a hill 50
kilometres south of Montreal that contains the N-word in its
name. Black slaves were buried at the site from 1794 until
slavery was abolished in 1833.
In Quebec's Laurentides region, the commission has
recognized three rapids along the Red River that have the N-word
in their names but it does not detail the origin of the names on
its website, according to the CBC report.