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• The board has opened a 45-day comment period to replace the names of "Negro Wool Ridge" and "Negro Canyon" in Custer County, "Negro Hill" and "Negro Gulch" in Lawrence County and "Negro Creek" in Pennington County.
• The new names should be based on local history, folklore, events or natural features of the area.
• The state geographic board will review the submitted names in June, propose new names for the features and the public will again be asked to submit comments. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names has the final say on accepting the new names.
• The state board was tasked with renaming 38 racially charged landmarks in 2001, and it has renamed 20 locations.
• There is no question that names like "Squaw Humper" are offensive, and that they were offensive when the geographic features were first named. Of course, the names should go, and we applaud the state geographic board for getting around to it -- did it really take the board 12 years to decide what names were most offensive and change them?
• We're less certain about the degree of offensiveness of "Negro" in a geographic name. While the word has fallen out of favor today, it's not insulting, although the Associated Press Stylebook says the preferred word is "black" in most usages.
• There may have been reasons a century ago for the names the features have, but no one knows what those reasons are today.
• Meanwhile, a complaint about a Confederate flag at a historical display at the Veterans Affairs medical center in Hot Springs has led to its temporary removal while the Black Hills Health Care System decides what to do next.
• Our recommendation is to consider the historical context of how the flag is displayed to decide whether it is appropriate. Was the flag in the VA display to symbolize slavery or the Confederate states and veterans that participated in the Civil War?
• Slavery was wrong, and millions of Union soldiers fought and died to end slavery. Symbols that celebrate slavery -- as the Confederate flag is sometimes used -- also are wrong.
• We doubt that the VA's historic display was to celebrate slavery. As a historical representation of the Confederacy, we see nothing wrong with including the Confederate flag.
• What we wouldn't want to see happen is a whitewashing of our history. Reflexively removing all references to the Confederacy also removes references to evil of slavery.
• Historical context should rule. As someone more clever than ourselves (George

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