Just seems like an odd choice to me. If you go back far enough, most streets in Boston or old-ish american cities are all named after people, and most of those people were probably racists (just, ya know, statistically). My understanding of the history is that Yawkey
didn't appear to be personally all that racist, if anything probably less than average for his times, but that the people he hired to run the team were vociferously so (particularly Pinky Higgins).
To take nearby examples, Lansdowne Street itself is named after an
English hereditary Lord, like all the
streets of back bay when Arthur Gilman laid it out in the 1880s. From Arlington and Berkeley through Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford, and then Ipswitch, Jersey, Kenmore and then Lansdowne. English Lords all. How much you want to bet they were total assholes too? Just seems like a silly line in the sand to draw, one that isn't going to make anyone feel any better. Name some more things after Ortiz, Pedro, Bill Russell, eventually Mookie, put up statues, celebrate their achievements, and maybe ya know have a minority run something in the front office for a change. That's way more real and substantive than changing a street name for someone whose legacy will be largely lost to history in a generation anyway.
