Keep the "Plantation" in Rhode Island

AOL - Despite all the change in Washington, Rhode Island has voted to stick with a nearly 400-year-old incumbent -- its name.
Officially, America's smallest state is called "the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." The "plantations" part is left over from the 1630s, an old British term for a colony that theologian Roger Williams used when he founded a settlement based on the principles of religious freedom, abolition of slavery and equal treatment for Native Americans, Rhode Island historian Josh Marshall wrote on TalkingPointsMemo.com.
But ironically, the word "plantations" came to invoke just the opposite, conjuring associations with slavery in the American South before the Civil War. 
Acting on complaints about that negative connotation, the state's General Assembly voted last year to put the question to voters, asking them whether they wanted to change the state's official name. The first of a list of questions on Rhode Island's election ballot Tuesday was whether to drop "Providence Plantations" from the state's official title, according to The Associated Press.
The measure was defeated, with Rhode Islanders voting overwhelmingly -- by nearly 78 percent -- to keep the original name, The Providence Journal reported.


And the people have spoken! Rhode Island AKA Rogue's Island is an itty bitty state but damn boy, do they have a lot of pride. You can't call everything racist, its just how things have been for centuries upon centuries. If we are going to go around and change things because people are sensitive to every single name or possible reference then we are going to have no sense of history. Thankfully the majority of the people of Rhode Island realize that.
There are way to many up tight uneducated fools going around screaming for change. Change this! Change that! What ever happen to embracing your roots?
Everyone wants a more educated youth in this country but isn't willing to actually pick up a book and learn for themselves. If you had attended the high school history classes you probably skipped out on, you'd have known Rhode Island was anti slavery to begin with.
In case you hadn't noticed, The Civil War is over, the Union won, slavery was abolished and we currently have a black president. BOO YAA.


But Kendall here, now hes got cause for complaint.

-R.C. Suessmandzadeh