Mountain Project Logo

Redacted route titles?

Marc801 C · · Sandy, Utah · Joined Feb 2014 · Points: 65

Read this thread: https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/119475634/whats-up-with-rumney-hinterlands

It’s one person who changed the names of his routes to protest any of the name changes. 

Nick Wilder · · Boulder, CO · Joined Jan 2005 · Points: 4,098
Russell S wrote:

I noticed this a few days ago when I was The Hinterlands in Rumney and looking for the beta on Nicki's Crack, 11d. A friend told me, "oh yea they've started redacting offensive names." I was like: "Nikki's Crack?" Then I looked at the rest of Hinterlands. Seven climbs redacted. Made it difficult to even find your way around. Screenshot is attached.

Here's a list of route names. If someone could explain to me what the thinking is here, I'd be all ears. Until then, I gotta say this is ridiculously misguided:

  • Electric Socks, now redacted
  • Nikki's Crack, now redacted
  • Hinterlands Highway, now redacted
  • Back Crack, now redacted (but "Killer's Crack" isn't?)
  • Cold Shoulder, now redacted
  • Chicken Head, now redacted
  • Giant Man (a classic), now redacted
  • plus two more 5.8s that don't show up in my book.

Unless I'm missing something, none of these are references to Nazis, racism, or the like. Although, maybe someone could enlighten me.

These are the result of the FAs making a statement and renaming their routes "Redacted".  They have not been redacted by MP.

MattWallace · · Center Harbor, NH · Joined Nov 2008 · Points: 8,752
Russell S wrote:

I noticed this a few days ago when I was The Hinterlands in Rumney and looking for the beta on Nicki's Crack, 11d. A friend told me, "oh yea they've started redacting offensive names." I was like: "Nikki's Crack?" Then I looked at the rest of Hinterlands. Seven climbs redacted. Made it difficult to even find your way around. Screenshot is attached.

Here's a list of route names. If someone could explain to me what the thinking is here, I'd be all ears. Until then, I gotta say this is ridiculously misguided:

  • Electric Socks, now redacted
  • Nikki's Crack, now redacted
  • Hinterlands Highway, now redacted
  • Back Crack, now redacted (but "Killer's Crack" isn't?)
  • Cold Shoulder, now redacted
  • Chicken Head, now redacted
  • Giant Man (a classic), now redacted
  • plus two more 5.8s that don't show up in my book.

Unless I'm missing something, none of these are references to Nazis, racism, or the like. Although, maybe someone could enlighten me.

Russell, this is the person who did the FA of all those routes "protesting" the changing of offensive names.

Russell S · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2018 · Points: 31
MattWallace wrote:

Russell, this is the person who did the FA of all those routes "protesting" the changing of offensive names.

Gotcha. I was just a little late to the whole discussion.

M Sprague · · New England · Joined Nov 2006 · Points: 5,080
MattWallace wrote:

Russell, this is the person who did the FA of all those routes "protesting" the changing of offensive names.

Not completely accurate. The protest is against the gross overreach in defining what is offensive and basing it on the view of the "offended" even if the  sense of "offence' is because they are an extremist or ignorant or so prissy one can't even make a lightly racy  pun (like Hooter's Arete at an Owl's Cliff) 

I probably had a "dirty" thought at some point while putting up every one of my routes, so you should all probably stay off them.

MattWallace · · Center Harbor, NH · Joined Nov 2008 · Points: 8,752
M Sprague wrote:

Not completely accurate. The protest is against the gross overreach in defining what is offensive and basing it on the view of the "offended" even if the  sense of "offence' is because they are an extremist or ignorant or so prissy one can't even make a lightly racy  pun (like Hooter's Arete at an Owl's Cliff) 

I probably had a "dirty" thought at some point while putting up every one of my routes, so you should all probably stay off them.

Yeah sure, sorry I didn't dive deep into the minutia of your protest. 

Tao Techakanon · · Bangkok, Thighland · Joined Apr 2013 · Points: 2,995

It is very unclear to me how the flagging/redacting mechanism works... I guess myself being in Thailand puts me a little behind on the current on-going cancel culture across the pond but I am trying to understand this. 

As for the routes in Thailand, I've recently noticed "Babes in Thailand" and "Knights in White Satin" being redacted.  How these names may have offensive reference is beyond me, but I am now getting Thai users asking the questions in which I am unable to answer.  This makes the MP, as a platform looks quite 'ethnocentric', and to be frank, I find the threshold for what's being considered offensive nowadays comically low.  

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/107142510/redacted

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105925309/redacted

I am not very active on the forum, but if someone could point me out as if there's a way to un-redacted the name, please let me know.  

Cheers

Matt Wetmore · · NYC · Joined May 2017 · Points: 520
SinRopa wrote:

We're all unclear about the particulars and it all seems super arbitrary.  Add me to the list of people confused about how "Knights in White Satin" is offensive.  Google says it's a disco song from the mid 70s?

Im guessing because it seems like a KKK reference. 

Marc801 C · · Sandy, Utah · Joined Feb 2014 · Points: 65
SinRopa wrote:

Still seems like a stretch to take a Klan meaning from that climb, unless there’s some backstory that I haven’t heard.   

Don't know anything about the back story of the route in question, but in general the problem is using "Knights" instead of "Nights". 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Knights_of_the_Ku_Klux_Klan

The White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. They originated in Mississippi and Louisiana  in the early 1960s under the leadership of Samuel Bowers, its first Grand Wizard.[1] The White Knights of Mississippi were formed in 1964,[citation needed] and they included roughly 200 members of the Original Knights of Louisiana. The White Knights were not interested in holding public demonstrations or in letting any information about themselves get out to the masses. Similar to the United Klans of America (UKA), the White Knights of Mississippi were very secretive about their group. Within a year, their membership was up to around six thousand, and they had Klaverns in over half of the counties in Mississippi. By 1967, the number of active members had shrunk to around four hundred.[2] 

The White Knights were responsible for many bombings, church burnings, beatings, and murders. In 1964, they murdered three civil rights workers: Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner (as later depicted in the 1988 film Mississippi Burning, loosely based on these events). The victims were members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

White Knight member Samuel Bowers had targeted Schwerner because of the civil rights worker's efforts to promote racial equality and to get Blacks to register to vote during Freedom Summer. 

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

Claudine Longet · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Sep 2020 · Points: 0

Nights in White Satin is a Moody Blues song that most people think is Knights in White Satin

Marc801 C · · Sandy, Utah · Joined Feb 2014 · Points: 65
Claudine Longet wrote:

Nights in White Satin is a Moody Blues song that most people think is Knights in White Satin

That's because Giorgio Moroder recorded a disco version of the song as "Knights in White Satin" for a 1976 album of the same name.

Marc801 C · · Sandy, Utah · Joined Feb 2014 · Points: 65
SinRopa wrote:

I still don't see how "Knights" is a problem.  Like you pointed out above, it's a song name.  Why are we assuming Klan support by the FA?

Stop conflating - the FA and the route in question are not what I was talking about. It's people who can't understand why Knights, especially when associated with "White Satin", given the history of the KKK in white sheets, just might be considered racist. Read the wiki entries.

Whether the route name should be redacted is a separate discussion.

PWZ · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Feb 2016 · Points: 0

"well actually the swastika was a hindu symbol"

Dave Olsen · · Channeled Scablands · Joined Dec 2019 · Points: 10

Gonna be tough. Some things are proscriptive, some descriptive, some double entendre, some history.

What about the Chessman Pinnacle?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caryl_Chessman

A rapist who's execution helped end the death penalty in CA?

Is this a good name or a bad name or does it prompt one to learn something about history?

Should Neil Young redact his song etc.?

Chessman is mentioned in Neil Diamond's 1970 song "Done Too Soon."

In 1977, Alan Alda starred in an NBC television movie about Chessman's life, titled Kill Me If You Can. This was sometimes shown, subsequently, as The Caryl Chessman Story.[35]

The song "The Ballad of Caryl Chessman," written by the hit songwriting team of Al Hoffman and Dick Manning,[36] and which includes the chorus "let him live, let him live, let him live," was a minor hit single for Ronnie Hawkins two months before Chessman's execution.[37]

Country music star Merle Haggard stated in an interview in 1995 that many years earlier, when he was a prison inmate, observing Chessman's preparations for his execution helped to set him on the straight and narrow.[38]

"Chessman," a 2016 play by Joe Rodota, tells the story of the execution from the viewpoint of Governor Pat Brown.[39]

The song "Broadway Melody of 1974" by the rock group Genesis, off their album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, contains the following lyrics: "Caryl Chessman sniffs the air and leads the parade, he knows, in a scent, you can bottle all you made."[40]

Mexican Professional Luchador, "Chessman, the red light killer," from AAA, is named after Caryl Chessman.[41]

Ben Williams · · Van · Joined Sep 2015 · Points: 40

does anyone even climb anymore? Let's just erase all routes from mountain project and burn the guidebooks. 

#freshstart 

Marc801 C · · Sandy, Utah · Joined Feb 2014 · Points: 65
SinRopa wrote:

Wow, you’re extra on edge today...I’m not conflating anything.  This is a thread about redacted route names.  That’s the whole topic here.

Also, Knights pre-date the Klan by centuries, so “Knights” by itself shouldn’t be considered racist at all.  

EDIT for PWZ below: The swastika is pretty much intrinsically linked to the Nazis.  I don't think the word "knights" has the came sort of connotation to the KKK.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I think most people would first conjure up images of dudes jousting in armor and storming castles, not people burning crosses. 

You're being either obtuse or intentionally ignorant. You were the one who said they were confused about "knights". You're still looking at just "knights" - the problem is knights in juxtaposition with "white satin". It's explained in the wiki entries. You pulled this same kind of annoying stunt in the covid threads. You're not worth the effort. Goodbye.

Lily Johnson · · MA · Joined Jan 2018 · Points: 211
SinRopa wrote:

Like you said yourself, "Knights in White Satin" is a song with absolutely no association with the Klan, race, etc.  If there's not some race-related backstory we're unaware of, I don't get why the route name would be offensive, or why anyone would insinuate the FA named with the KKK in mind.

No need to get all jumpy.  I hope your week gets better.

First of all, the song is called "Nights in White Satin" The subtle change likely is a reference to the klan as a joke. Regardless of that though, if someone who is unaware of the song comes to this crag and sees that, it doesn't matter what the intent was, the message it sends across is less than playful.

Lily Johnson · · MA · Joined Jan 2018 · Points: 211
HUGE Tradifan wrote:

Could have just been a typo? How about a compromise, drop the "K", ok?

Personally I think it was probably done as a joke and not on accident, but yeah I think dropping the "k" would resolve that issue for sure

Lily Johnson · · MA · Joined Jan 2018 · Points: 211

Oops okay, you got me there, that's my fault for not being more thorough while searching.

Regardless, I still understand why people could definitely get klan vibes from it but yeah I just kinda proved your point with my ignorance.

 Things like this are up for debate with intent VS perception though, and while in this case I think it probably is safe to keep the old name, it's worth considering the meaning a name takes on regardless of the intent it was put up with. 

Cherokee Nunes · · Unknown Hometown · Joined May 2015 · Points: 0

Jesus Key Rhyst you guilt ridden apologists sure are tripping over this one. You changed the name of a route and you didn't even have a first clue what it was about, or anything. Knights is a reference to the Klan? That's idiotic beyond all comprehension. You're in such a rush to go no where; triggered over-reactions. Now you're trying to justify ignorance as an excuse (its an N, not a k = SO STUPID). Just change it back and apologize already. 

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

Discuss MountainProject.com
Post a Reply to "Redacted route titles?"

Log In to Reply
Welcome

Join the Community! It's FREE

Already have an account? Login to close this notice.