Only In Seattle: Senator compiles list of Washington’s racist lakes, creeks and more


via MYNorthwest —State Sen. Pramila Jayapal, D-Seattle, has begun an effort to identify and list Washington’s ethnically and racially offensive names. So far, her list identifies 36 locales but her office claims at least 48 such places could exist in Washington. According to Jayapal’s office, there will be an immediate focus to change other offensive titles around the state. The aim is to have the first set of names changed by the end of 2016.

Washington has a few “Negro Creeks” and a range of lakes, bays, and valleys that reference “squaw.” In King County, a place called “Coon Creek” has been identified and is up for a change.

“We can’t change the past, but we can change our course so as not to repeat our past mistakes,” Jayapal said. “No injustice should be below our notice, so while some of these creeks or lakes may be in remote places, they stand as a constant reminder of times when women, Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans and others were thought of and treated as less than a whole and autonomous person. It is pretty incredible that in 2016 we still have dozens of racist and offensive place names on record in our state.”

So far, the list contains about 48 places around Washington that use words such as “coon,” “Jim Crow,” “negro,” “chinaman,” “redman,” and “squaw” in their titles. Jayapal’s office notes that “squaw” is the most commonly used offensive name in the state and nation. Jayapal intends to send a letter to the 29 confederated tribes in Washington state asking for input on the name-changing effort and for any suggestions of new names to replace offensive titles.

“The fact is, words matter,” Jayapal said. “These names would not be used in conversation today and there is no reason to keep them alive in locations in our state. Instead of clinging to relics of an intolerant past, let’s rename these places so they celebrate the people and cultures that made Washington into the wonderful place it is today.”

In 2015, Jayapal was part of the successful effort to change the name of Coon Lake in Washington’s North Cascades region to Howard Lake.


Priorities, people, priorities. Never mind the illegally parked RVs along Seattle’s neighborhood streets that are inhabited by criminals. Never mind the perils of being a visitor to downtown Seattle because of the homeless and the crazies high on heroin. Renaming things is important to this new Senator from Seattle- and never mind that the majority of the offending landscape is in Eastern Washington.

37 Comments on Only In Seattle: Senator compiles list of Washington’s racist lakes, creeks and more

  1. Lake Tahoe ski resorts has some real problems. Squaw Valley and, worse yet, Heavenly Valley. I don’t know which is worse, but Squaw usualy has better snow.

  2. India has hundreds? thousands? of dialects IIRC. I’m sure that in at least one of them “Pramila Jayapal” means “arrogant meddler” or the like.

  3. The local squawfish found all over Eastern Washington refused to comment because they didn’t really want people like this idiot to know that squawfish are suckers and carp. My god if it had been an Asian carp someone on the West side would’ve shit kittens because it’d be a slur towards Asians. These people just need to go away and leave the rest of us the hell alone. What a bunch of miserable pissants who aren’t happy about anything except for fucking up our lives.

  4. Squaw fish were officially renamed pike minnows a few years back in Wash. State. First off they’re not minnows and secondly they’re not pike either. But if you catch them the State game dept. does pay a bounty for them and their removal from our local waterways. Woo hoo!

  5. Have these idiots in WA state never heard of colloquialisms? Coon is a shorter form of the word “raccoon” and morons that find it offensive are hunting for things to be offended about. These progressive jackasses always want to police the language and twist it to fit into whatever warped standard they want to apply to it so they can constantly force their own twisted values on everyone else. They need to shut up and leave people alone.

  6. geoff:
    Caught a lot of Squaw Fish out of Shasta. Believe it or not California still calls the Squaw Fish.

  7. “No injustice should be below our notice”
    Instead of this blint worrying about words offending someone, why isn’t she railing against Islam which is actually hurting people?

  8. Sooner or later you just know some progtard idiot will want to ban the name raccoon because it has the word coon in it. And then what shall we call raccoons, can’t call them bandits because somehow or other that just might be racist unless you’re a white bandit. Give it up progtards and just leave us the hell alone.

  9. Oh, thank heavens Seattle and Washington state have solved all their other problems so the State Senators can spend their precious time and tax payer money on this stuff!

  10. That crap is essentially the core of modern college curriculum. There wil be no more scientific inquiry, only inquiry about science as it relates to feminism, no more mathematical theory, only mathematical queer theory, no more engineering, only social engineering. This grievance-counting harpie is at the vanguard of the idiocracy.

  11. Geoff, remember…

    “Daniel Boone was a man,

    He was a big man,

    But the bear was bigger,

    So he ran like a ninja through the woods.”

  12. Thank God they’re are no Gook Creeks or Gook Lakes in Wash. State. And what about Jump Off Joe Lake (great place to catch craw dads, cray fish, mud bugs etc.) up around Chewelah in Eastern Wash? Are they going to ban that name as well because it just might promote suicide for guys named Joe? The absurdity of the left and progtards is never ending folks, they’re professional grievance mongers.

  13. Notice that Devils Canyon, Devils Tower and all the other devil-named places don’t even register on their crybully meters.

  14. I grow weary of the idiocy here in the People’s Republic of Washington. I live on the “good” side of the state, but we are consistently outvoted by the loons in Seattle metro area. This is why we are moving out of this state sometime this year.

  15. If I really, really put some thought into it, I could find King’s County, Queen’s County, and Cromwell Lake in Orange County really offensive. But I have better things to do with my life. Sen. Jayapal is just part of a cult. For a great lecture of the subject go to:
    C SPAN 2 Books. Jack Cashill “Scarlet Letter.” “The ever increasing intolerence of the cult of liberalism.”

  16. Precious little Pramila doesn’t know that coon is a diminutive name for raccoon. Or that many people have the last name Coon.

    And negro is a Spanish word for black. Is yellow or white or purple offensive, too? Guess I’ll have to run shrieking when I see the words amarillo or blanco or morado.

  17. While she’s changing the name of everything else, maybe someone should change HER name to Vajayjay. Surely THAT can’t be offensive?

  18. This is just another way the left wants to erase our state’s history and replace it with PC crap. All of the names ment something at that time for the people who were living there at that time. If it is renamed the historic link will be gone because the new books will omit the old and true history. Thank you howard zinn and the left revisionists. I and AA have been to many of the areas that they will try to rename.

  19. How do they feel about Bloody Dick Creek, Montana? Isn’t that name kind of sex-change friendly? Bet they don’t have a problem with that one, they’d like for every man to become a submissive woman.

    Seriously, we should push all the progressives off of “Kiss My Ass” cliff.


    @Corona , they are trying to rename Devil’s Tower to Bear Lodge – the original native name. I don’t give a shit what they call it, but it can cause very big problems when it comes to reading a map if they change age old landmarks and geographic names.

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