Well, Bernie died of Covid.

Of course, Im merely curious.

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I’m new to Worcester, and that placed just looked closed from the highway

This is my take. Just go ahead and do it and not waste any time and resources to discuss it.

Why be precious about a street name?

Cafe Reyes is incredible. The Cubans there are 👌🏻😤👌🏻😤✨✨

I always enjoy the coffee at Cafe Reyes.

Do we all agree #1 is the fact that Worcester is a garbage patch disguised as a city

UMASS Medical complex sits on what was once a farm. It was the "poor farm" for the city's indigent of all races. Later it was a therapeutic farm for patients at the Worcester State Hospital. Both groups were cared for, housed and fed. Those groups now make up Worcester's homeless. Put your money where your mouth is UMASS and do something about real problems not some BS feel good renaming of a street.

I LOVE Acoustic Java. The iced coffee there is excellent, I'm not sure which beans they're using but I was impressed that I could taste a complexity of flavor - usually when I get iced coffee it just has that general bitter/acidic coffee flavor but it was like toasty and nutty there. They also have a nice selection of beans you can buy. There's other stuff there too but haven't tried yet.

Stop Cafe on Park Ave

Great coffee, I'm not a huge coffee drinker- but when I want one- I go there. the coffee is still impeccably made.

They also have Albanian food served for lunch and dinner, it's also a pizza place. Albanian food is excellent- pizza not so much.

Added bonus- the owners are very easy on the eyes.

Back in 2007 Worcester started the process to rename Central St. to MLK Jr. Boulevard. It’s funny how a lot of the arguments against renaming Plantation St. are echoes from opposition to creating MLK Jr. Boulevard. The talking point about “cost” of changing personal info being unfair is identical.

Quinsigamond Plantation was part of the Trans Atlantic Slave trade. Nipmuc and Wampanoags were imprisoned and enslaved during and after King Philip’s War. Many of them were peaceful Christian converts who had no connection to the war, and were rounded up by angry and scared colonists (who then profited from taking their lands).

I recommend “Our Beloved Kin” by Lisa Brooks for an excellent and detailed retelling of that conflict.

Pushing back against slavery is a Worcester historical tradition. There is a long history of abolitionist activism in Worcester, along with it being a stop in the Underground Railroad. This follows our history.

Ultimately this is a small and minor symbolic change. But language does matter. Ultimately, it will be a minor inconvenience when it does change.

I understand the connection to slavery in the word plantation. In fact I think most people's first thought upon hearing the word plantation would be slavery. That does not make the word racist. The definition of racist is, prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. That's it. If it was say, Plantation Rd somewhere in the deep south, well that would probably upset a lot of people and rightly so. There was very little slavery here in the northeast but there were plantations here before slavery came to America. Plantation then referred to a settlement like Quinsigamond or Quaboag. It also referred to agriculture something that remained in that part of Worcester until the 1950s. So besides Plantation St referring to the 1600s settlement and not slavery there's no rational argument to change it. I think there's altogether way too much of this racism McCarthyism. You're just not going to find racism under every rock. When something like this is overplayed it's reduced to noise and people tune it out. Racism is a serious subject that must not be ignored but you need to know what you are talking about and not just casually toss it around.

Why is it racist ? What do you think plantations did after the war ? Change t all their names to Walmart and hire illegal aliens. The word plantation in itself is not racist. Jesus man. When's all this going to stop

Let's rename it Affordable Healthcare For All Blvd.

I think we should keep it cause it’s funny.

If, this is actually an issue in your life, you really need to look at your life. The WORD, Plantation, doesn't ONLY mean a Southern slave owning Plantation. So, PLEASE, take a moment and seriously look at yourself in a mirror. And, if you ACTUALLY think this is an ACTUAL problem. Then, guess what? Your not only Stupid. But, worse, your an actual Stupid Asshole.

Many Nipmuc and Wampanoags were sold into slavery during the colonial years, especially in the aftermath of King Philip’s War.

Quinsigamond is the Nipmuc name for the lake.

> Does UMass go through every product they purchase to make sure today's slave labor is not use to produce those products?

Guarantee they use Nestlé products somewhere.

What about the folks in Florida living in Plantation, FL right outside of Fort Lauderdale? Should we change the the city’s name? Stupid.

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I actually do what I preach...I have POC high school students come to my lab at umass to mentor them in 1) what a STEM career can look like, 2) help them see how a STEM career is something they can do, and 3) help them get into more colleges with a lab internship on their CV. Basically give them opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t be afforded to them, unless they cane from rich families with connections. But by and large, I'm the one who does the heavy lifting trying to do outreach into area schools. The diversity initiative at umass is a joke in most ways that can have practical applications to ACTUALLY help out the local community. Basically all they have to offer is red tape and "oh that sounds like a good idea" but don't follow through. They COULD invest all the time and money from this street-naming campaign into expanding the diversity outreach people like me, and a few other labs, are already doing on our own time. Like I'd LOVE to have an admin assistant dedicated to communicating with area guidance counselors and interested research labs to match each other up with interested HS students. But I guess the street nane thing is FAR too important than expanding the "silly" notion of getting HS students in a school-to-STEM pipeline.

I also cannot explain enough how much this street thing is a big PR bandaid on a much larger UMass issue has with POC employees. I feel like it's a big distraction IMO....a big fat red herring. UMMS has an issue with department heads not promoting or hiring women/POC people when their CVs are top notch. Looking at top level leadership positions in departments, there is a lack of both women and POC....and that is definitely not due to a lack of excellence women and POC have on the job. There also is a great deal of ablism through UMMS leadership, that those who aren't neurotypical are not given promotions even though their work output clearly should be recognized. I can tell you in absolute terms that people in the UMMS community are not complaining about the street name. The biggest issues in the community right now are the anti-labor activities and institutionalized rascism internal to the medical center. I feel those issues are trying to be rug swept with this new street name PR campaign.

>I did not see much information about slavery on Quinsigamond Plantation in your link. Much more like a passing comment.

Yes it's almost like Quinsigamond Plantation isn't tremendously important to history and the people furiously defending its namesake are just looking for things to be upset about. Again, did you know a single thing about it before today?

>I like to learn about the history of my surroundings, so yes, I did.

Name one thing about it without Googling right now.

>Who said anything about where the slaves originated from? I asked about slaves.

And I answered about slaves. I told you about slavery, and genocide to boot. So it sounds like you're just looking for a distraction.

>Why is UMass not addressing today's slaves.

Are you? Do you make sure all the products you use are made without slave labor? Or are you "virtue signalling" right now?

>Pushing to change the name of a street because of the word plantation is about as shallow as you can get.

Pushing against it for effectively no reason is shallower.

Ask someone who lives on the street how much of their personal info we'll have to change. Then multiply that by thousands of people.