>Blair Lee | My Maryland
Perhaps you mistakenly believed that Maryland lawmakers were preoccupied with the state’s budget crisis or the $33 billion unfunded public employees’ pension and health care liabilities or the spike in home foreclosures or the unemployment rate.
No, despite these pressing problems, our state lawmakers still have plenty of time for contentious racial arm wrestling. The latest Culture War clash over racial symbols and “gotcha” politics involves renaming mountains and replacing statues.
Two African-American state senators want to rewrite history more to their liking.
Sen. Lisa Gladden (D-Baltimore city) recently discovered a height in faraway Garrett County named Negro Mountain. According to Western Maryland lore, the mountain was named in honor of a black frontiersman who died in the French and Indian Wars defending white settlers against hostile Indians, now called “Native Americans,” not to be confused with illegal immigrants, now dubbed “New Americans.”
