Hey Rhode Island Trekkies, let's talk about the name of our state and why it's time to change it.

It's Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. That's a lot of words. Also, one of them is Plantations.

Providence Plantations was the name of the colony founded in 1636 in what is now Providence by Roger Williams, religious freedom advocate, linguist, and stone-cold fox. Roger Williams did not found Rhode Island.

Rhode Island is the settlements of Portsmouth and Newport on on the island that used to be called Rhode Island. We call it Aquidneck Island now to avoid confusing it with, y'know, the rest of the state. The royal charter kept both names of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

Since "Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" is a giant mouthful to say, and people are lazy, we've been calling it just Rhode Island since forever. The full name is in the US Constitution and was on state letterhead until this week.

Here's the thing White People Like Me don't understand - or didn't until very, very, very recently - Plantation is a painful word. It hurts those descended from people who were enslaved. No picture with this tweet because you all know what that word conjures to mind.

That word hurts in a special way. I don't have a word that does that to me. I can't conceive of the pain that part of history inflicts on its survivors and their descendants. But to move forward, I have to acknowledge that it does.

Providence Plantations, and Rhode Island, were centers of the slave trade. See that good old Triangular Trade diagram you remember from history class? That's us at the top of the triangle.

And yes, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations made money off the slave trade. And had slaves, mostly in what is now Washington County. Brown University, our resident Ivy, has confronted its own founding sins connected with slavery. https://library.brown.edu/create/firstreading2012/browns-legacy-of-slavery/

Sure, the city of Providence did not have "Plantations" in the sense that word is understood in the Old South (y'know, the one that still though owning people was cool). It was more of general term for a settlement. It doesn't make the word any better.

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

So here's the thing that took me so long to understand: Using the full name of this state doesn't make my life any better, but it hurts others. Understanding means that I must let this name go - we must let go - if we are serious about moving forward together.

We have to have hope for the future. And the optimism to make that future better than today. We have that optimism. We're Star Trek Fans.

Didn't think I was going to bring it back to #StarTrek, did you?

Besides - we have the only canon starship named after a state. And that starship's name is simply "Rhode Island."