As the Free Beacon is reporting this week, California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein is being canceled in her native city of San Francisco. The Dianne Feinstein Elementary School in the San Francisco Unified School District is going to be renamed after a lengthy social justice review determined that Feinstein was insufficiently woke at one point in her past. If this announcement regarding one of the most infamously liberal members of the upper chamber is taking you by surprise, you’re not alone. But it’s apparently true. Read on to find out what sin the 87-year-old legislator committed.
Dianne Feinstein Elementary School is 1 of 44 schools that will be renamed because the district deemed their namesakes “inappropriate” in October. Feinstein’s cancellable offense was raising a Confederate flag in front of San Francisco City Hall while serving as mayor in 1984.
The district decided to reevaluate its school names following a summer of racial-justice protests. Among the schools it plans to rename are those whose namesakes owned slaves, perpetuated human-rights abuses, or oppressed minorities, women, and the LGBT community.
A 1984 copy of Workers Vanguard reported that “Dixie” Feinstein raised a Confederate flag over the San Francisco Civic Center and replaced the flag after racial-justice protesters tore it down.
There’s a bit of a history lesson here, I suppose. This July 6, 1984 copy of Workers Vanguard carries a blaring headline declaring that “militants” had torn down a confederate flag raised by Feinstein over the San Francisco Civic Center, then tearing down the flagpole it was attached to. Feinstein later had the pole repaired and a new confederate flag raised in its place.
The details in this communist publication are pretty hilarious. The paper refers to Feinstein, who was then the Mayor of the city, alternately as “Dixie” Feinstein and “Jefferson Davis” Feinstein. There had reportedly been a running battle taking place between the communist union members in the city and the Mayor over this issue. The paper reports that Feinstein had raised confederate flags over the Civic Center twice in May of that year, with “workers” tearing them down both times. Then in late June and early July, Mayor Feinstein had confederate flags hoisted twice more. Her efforts finally came to an end at that point and she replaced the banner with the “California Hundred” flag.
What’s harder to determine is why Feinstein was so set on flying a confederate banner to begin with. There’s a reference to an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle where Feinstein claimed that the only reason the Stars and Bars were flying was that the California Hundred flag was “unavailable” at the time. That’s a curious choice for a replacement in such a liberal bastion, though. Who knew that Feinstein was such a fan of Dixie?
She can consider herself in good company at least. Nearly four dozen schools are being renamed in the district. Other sinners being canceled include Thomas Edison, George Washington, Herbert Hoover, and Abraham Lincoln. In the case of Honest Abe, he apparently failed to “demonstrate that Black lives mattered” to him.
We have to wonder whether anyone will bother telling Feinstein about the school name change in case she wants to fight the decision. More the point, if they do tell her, will she remember the news by the following day?
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