I honestly don't understand this argument. People brought up the same kind of snide remarks when BLM pushed to rename some college library after Woodrow Wilson, or to take down an Andrew Jackson statue somewhere.
Erasing history means erasing from history books, pretending it didn't happen. Taking down monuments is not the same thing. It is a big, overt statement that the contributions of those people are no longer respected. I don't see why this is so controversial.
I presume you are not outraged when statues of Hitler or Saddam are taken down?
> "It is a big, overt statement that the contributions of those people are no longer respected."
That's the crux of your argument. In this case, when talking about Calhoun College and the concept of "erasing history" it's not that the concern that Calhoun's name will be lost, but rather than part of the identity of the college and all the events tied to it will be.
It's easy enough to think that a name change will be "simple" but it's the question of how you refer to events in the past, how you get the community to reflect this change, and how you are able to respectfully honor the history of the college in the light of this change, without making everything that occurred in the past seem like an error or portrayed in a negative light.
Yale's choice to go forward is something that I'm proud of as this has been a point of contention in our community, but it has also spurred new questions of how we deal with the identity and history of the college.
Erasing history means erasing from history books, pretending it didn't happen. Taking down monuments is not the same thing. It is a big, overt statement that the contributions of those people are no longer respected. I don't see why this is so controversial.
I presume you are not outraged when statues of Hitler or Saddam are taken down?