Why this street name is set to be wiped off the map after it offended an Uber driver
A quiet street will have its name changed after an Uber driver came across it and pointed out its racist background to locals.
Byron Shire Council announced last Thursday that Hottentot Crescent in Mullumbimby, just west of Brunswick Heads, will soon be renamed ‘Moonlight Close’.
The council determined that Hottentot, a racist term for indigenous South Africans, was no longer appropriate for use and needed to change.
The slur comes from the Hottentot bean tree, a South African tree that grows on the crescent, but was used as a derogatory term by Dutch colonists.
The name of a quiet street in Mullumbimby, just west of Brunswick Heads, will be changed from Hottentot Crescent to Moonlight Close (pictured) due to the name’s racist background
Jonny Simons, a local man who moved to Australia from South Africa in the 1980s, sparked calls for the name change last year after an Uber driver from South Africa tipped him off.
The street is home to 23 homes that are part of a residential area developed in 1993, and the surrounding streets also have botanical-themed names.
An overwhelming majority of residents, aged 12 to 5, were against the name change when their views were asked during the council’s consultation phase.
One dissenting local resident, Daisy Sturm, said the change was “absolutely without reason” and added that it would be difficult to update her address on legal documents.
“When I moved here 25 years ago, I was told this is the name of a tree, and I thought, ‘That’s beautiful,’” she said. Sydney Morning Herald reports.
“Suddenly it’s unacceptable because, as I understand it, someone who doesn’t even live here has really objected.”
Other names for the street were also suggested to the council before moving forward with Moonlight Close.
Other names on the shortlist included Drunken Parrot Place, named after a nearby tree that is “full of drunken parakeets every spring and summer,” Brett Summerell, chief scientist at the Botanic Gardens of Sydney, told the publication.
Jonny Simons (pictured) told Byron Shire Council that Hottentot is a derogatory term for indigenous South Africans
Mr Simons wrote to Byron Shire Council last year to call for the name change and was in tears as he chaired a council meeting in February.
He told councilors that having grown up in apartheid South Africa, he was “very aware of what that name means because it was a name called my people.”
‘It was shortened to hot-tots… to make you feel inferior.
“Only when you or your family is called that can you fully understand what it means.”
The resident also added that he has nothing against residents who opposed the name change because “they didn’t know what it meant.”
“They thought it was the name of a tree, but the tree was called that because the Khoisan people of South Africa ate the fruit of that tree,” he said.