A road in North London has been renamed because it was deemed “racist,” despite the change being opposed by nearly all the black residents who lived there.
Some of the residents have refused to acknowledge the change and have put up Black Boy Lane road signs on their homes in protest….meanwhile the new name has already been crossed out with paint.
The Tottenham road is now called La Rose Lane after the black poet, publisher and activist John La Rose. The change has cost the taxpayer a mere £186,000.
Oddly, the old name still remains on the sign as it notes that the road was formerly known as Black Boy Lane. This surely begs the question of how offensive the original name really was….
The Telegraph reports: After more than two years of reviews, deliberations and three consultations, a residential street sign has been removed and a new one put in its place. No longer will Black Boy Lane be tarnished by what Haringey council calls the name’s “racist connotations”; it will now be called La Rose Lane, after the black activist, publisher, poet and essayist.
The total cost of this process, which I assume includes the cost of replacing the physical signs, the hours spent on the consultation process, the two in-person and one online ‘engagement sessions’ that managed a total of one attendee between them – who opposed the change – and the proposed £300 compensation to each household and business on the street, is estimated at an eye-watering £180,000.
Of course, the idea to do away with Black Boy Lane wasn’t solely the brainchild of a few Left-wing councillors. No, in the words of the Council, the “catalyst” for the review was the establishment of the Mayor of London’s sinister-sounding Commission on Diversity in the Public Realm, which was, naturally, prompted by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the subsequent rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Council papers themselves warned that “Not going ahead with the renaming at this point would not capitalise on the momentum created by the Black Lives Matter movement…, prompting questions: ‘if not now, then when?’”
The irony is that so very few of those actually living on the street were even interested in the consultation; of the 36 residents or business owners on Black Boy Lane who responded to the consultation, the overwhelming majority (81%) were against the change, including all three of the Black African/ Caribbean respondents