Bye Bye, Columbus Day
Several weeks ago the Brown University faculty ratified a student petition demanding that the university abandon its recognition of Columbus Day. The directive was enacted by Brown’s Native American student group, whose spokesmen defend their activism by pointing out the atrocities committed by Christopher Columbus and his men upon the indigenous people of the newly discovered continent. Some have suggested that the holiday be renamed Indigenous Day, but for now Brown has decided to settle for Fall Weekend — a weekend in which Brown students and professors will still enjoy a Monday off from work.
Now that Brown University has set new moral standards for preserving traditional namesakes, some are wondering if Brown students will petition to scratch the name of a slave-trading family from the face of their university.
Or will they look into the misdeeds of Martin Luther King Jr. in an attempt to save the nation from commemorating anyone who may have blemishes on his moral record? Will there now be an academic investigation into the countless atrocities committed by Native Americans, prompting the removal of tribal names from casinos and other landmarks?
Probably not. But nobody expects consistency from liberals anymore anyway.
Of course, academic effort to clarify history is a laudable activity, which is exactly the sort of innocence Brown activists are currently shrouding themselves in. We are merely correcting the record and then asking if it is appropriate to hold Christopher Columbus in such high esteem.
Fine. But more bothersome than whether or not Columbus’ name deserves enshrinement is the driving force behind liberals’ odd propensity to obsess over the transgressions of America’s traditional heroes.
Vilifying the American heritage is what passes as “progressive” and “enlightened” at Brown because it is an intellectual stance that stems from the university’s multicultural lesson — the politically correct teaching that commands students to recognize the worth of every society except their own, to honor and respect people of every race and creed except for whites and conservatism.
As the Brown Daily Herald recently editorialized, “White people, ranging from European colonizers to the government of the United States, have committed innumerable brutal offenses against Native Americans over the past 500 years. Honoring Columbus with a holiday glosses over a racist, blood-stained facet of our history and glamorizes the past as victorious manifest destiny.”
The Brown Daily Herald did not print this passage to be inflammatory. This is commonplace at Brown. This is Tuesday.
What a joke. I wonder if they are going to try to force their sister Ivy, Columbia University, to change their name, also. One would think that such intelligence as is claimed to be found in the Ivies would demand that one of their own schools not be named after such a horrid character (to their twisted minds).
I wonder if they are going to sue to get Washington D.C. to change its name, too. And the nation of Columbia must offend them, to no end.
It’s a tough life as a liberal, battered at every moment by their pathological cognitive dissonance. I almost feel bad for the morons.
Oh please find something worthy of getting worked up about. Columbus didn’t discover North America…he discovered the Bahamas. The Norse were the first ones to set foot on North American soil from Europe some 400+ years earlier. Columbus day should be replaced it is an incorrectly perceived and inaccurate historical event.
Yes, the destruction of indigenous tribes was tragic, but in the reality of the natural world not unusual. Species have been destroying each other for land and resources since life began. Ants, wasps, bees, monkeys all ‘go to war’ for food and resources. Lions will compete for territory, mating rights and food. Original indigenous tribes to Florida were decimated by invading Seminoles long before the Spanish arrived. The predecessors of the Jews were in place long before Syrians, or Palestinians even existed. The failure to grasp this simple and basic biological event of competition is almost humorous.
“We are merely correcting the record and then asking if it is appropriate to hold Christopher Columbus in such high esteem.”
It’s totally idiotic to associate Christopher Columbus with the violence that came later on. He simply discovered a land unknown to the Europeans.
That simple.
The blame should be placed on the bloody Catholic Spaniards that colonized the Americas and the settlers that exterminated the North American Indians.
Columbus Day is a celebration of a geographical discovery, not the mélange of social aftereffects that came later. Columbus never killed anyone.
I can’t believe educated people still confuse oranges and apples . . .
This sickness of trying to rewrite history under the guise of “multiculteralism” is insane. George Orwell once wrote that, “He who knows the past knows the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” People like Obama and those horrid multiculteralists think that now, because they are in power, they can rewrite history to shape their own political agenda. This is wrong and it is a tactic that would have horrified Orwell. All reasonable Americans should protest what this university is doing. You simply cannot judge people from the 15th or 16th centuries by 21st century standards. If you go down that road then everyone in every nation’s history is evil and should be wiped out of every history book. Should we ignore Jefferson and Washington because they were slave owners? Should we forget about Lincoln because he didn’t promote a woman’s right to vote? Should we forget all of Grant’s accomplishments because he was an alcoholic? Should we denounce Franklin Roosevelt because he prayed in office and was a devout Christian (because, you know, you can’t ever mix church and state, right multiculturalists)? This list could go on for days. If we held everyone in history to what is “politically correct” in the 21st century, then we would end up denoucing everyone in history. Or is this what the multiculturalists want? Do they really want to denounce and eradicate the major accomplishments of all of these individuals so that they can rewrite history in their image? The faculty at Brown University seems to think so and should be ashamed of themselves, especially since they, of all people, should be guided by historical accomplishments and not by cheap politics. But, funny, you also note that they will still take Columbus Day off. I guess the guy wasn’t so bad if it means a free day off from work. Shame on all of them.
Sorry, when Columbus returned to Haiti on his second trip and found that the 39 men he had left had been killed, they murdered a lot of natives and took some back to Europe as slaves. But I insist that the 12 0f October celebrates the discovery of a new land.
“…whose spokesmen defend their activism by pointing out the atrocities committed by Christopher Columbus and his men upon the indigenous people of the newly discovered continent.”
Oh really? You bunch of loons and moonbats. You hold Ted Kennedy in high esteem- ask the family of Mary Jo Kopechne about HIS atrocity. You hold Lenin and Mao in such high esteem. How did that work out for their followers? You hold Jimmy Carter in high esteem. How did that work out for you and your parents during his presidency?
Here’s a question for you: when are you going to apologize for your stupidity?
What a joke. I wonder if they are going to try to force their sister Ivy, Columbia University, to change their name, also.
Or how about Amherst, named after the British officer Jeffery Amherst who is accused of giving smallpox infected blankets to the Indians?
Is somebody suggesting that the batsh*t-insane Aztec psychopaths with their mass human sacrifices *shouldn’t* have been suppressed? Do these Rousseauvian moonbats think that war, conquest and cruelty weren’t the order of the day in the New World long before Columbus?
How do you think Brown University would like the name Brown Madrassa?
Why all the fuss? Tom H is correct. Leif Ericson “discovered” the American continent approximately 400 years before Columbus ever set foot on western hemisphere soil. Columbus is an imposter and Columbus Day a farce.
Since the leftists are into wealth redistribution and land reform, shouldn’t they be happy about what happened to the indigenous tribes? In 1492, who had more wealth than native Americans? They claimed huge tracts of land with all sorts of resources. Columbus just helped make sure that they couldn’t keep it all for themselves.
This is nothing. Africans were there before Europeans, and yet no one give them credit. I think that we have more problems then celebrating a impostor.
Indians practiced slavery, just as Africans did and still do practice slavery. I’m not excusing anyone just pointing out that there is some tarnish on their halo’s also. I have read that in fact Native American Indians were one of the last to give up slavery since they were under their own laws on the reservations. Everyone treats each other like crap it’s just that the Caucasians at this point in time are popular targets and wearing the sin cloak right now. Everyone else is getting a pass.
PC ghouls of the first order
Vivo, no one is perfect.
#7 Larry J:
I wouldn’t worry too much about Lord Jeffrey.
One of the places named for him was Amherst, NY. As your link notes, King George III gave Lord Amherst 20,000 acres. Jeffery didn’t know that the joke was on him; Amherst was (and is) mostly swampland. Many residents celebrate Earth Day by watching their homes sink into the ground.
Columbus Day has always been a useless holiday. Has anyone actually heard of a really great Columbus Day Sale? No. Memorial Day Sale? Yes. Motor-force of revolution Sale? No. Independence Day Sale? Yes.
Several years ago I responded to a message from University president Ruth Simmons celebrating their programs on diversity with a question about what Brown was doing about diversity of thought versus diversity of physical appearance. I never received an answer and never made another alumni donation.
There’s one very important concept that I feel is missing in any examination of leftists – the society that Lenin and his followers attempted to create in 1920′s Russia is essentially being lived out in our country today. The psychologically-damaged rich kids from the late 1960′s became infatuated with communism, for a littany of reasons. Because of the strength of their sheer numbers, their warped worldview and staunch refusal to step through the door into adulthood (hair replacement? viagra?)has spread throughout our society like a virus. In essence, America has a really bad cold. I could think of some really powerful antibiotics that would solve the problem once and for all.
While this latest move on the part of the brownies comes as no surprise, an example of something related to the late-60′s firebrands that caused all these problems and that is simply the epicenter of hypocrisy is their railing against corrupt pharmaceutical drug-testing in third-world countries (which is obviously an egregious practice); yet,it was okay for them to attempt to bring about political change by killing people in the late-60′s and early-70′s, and then turning their backs on the atrocities perpetuated on the South Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh.
Ah, what do we know? We’re just knuckledraggers.
Kudos to Travis, one of the truly great Irishmen walking the planet today.
How about we rename the whole Western Hemisphere. It is named after Amerigo Vespucci afterall. These people are so open minded, their brains fell out.
Rather then to celebrate our national evolution, we sacrifice substance by tailoring our historical foundation to incorporate modern social barricades. It forces us to reexamine the nature in which we view ourselves. Adhering to the rigid guidelines of political correctness subverts introspection and we become constrained by etiquette.
Two legs bad, four legs good!
Two legs bad, four legs good!
Between Monty Python and Stalin, this is how we sail these days. What an idiocy!
By the way, shouldn’t Brown U pick up Lula’s nation that it’s the white people, blond & w/ blue eyes that cause the current financial crisis?
It’s the time to shake those Poles, Russians and the rest of those racists!
Two legs bad, four legs good!
Two legs bad, four legs good!
Brown University has been a joke for some time now. It is trying its best to slip beyond parody and ridicule. It will be successful.
Yet more of the “white folks doing bad things to darker folks” litany.
When the Zulus moved their population and cattle down to southern Africa they wiped out the indigenous tribes and bush people whom they considered “dogs”. When the Maori arrived in New Zealand they had no compunction about wiping out the native population. The Aztecs and Mayans used the surrounding tribes for slaves and blood sacrifices. The list goes on and on.
Europeans at least offered some good with the bad.
“Leif Ericson “discovered” the American continent approximately 400 years before Columbus ever set foot on western hemisphere soil.”
And which British colonies followed this discovery?
Which new nations were founded?
Stop with the tiresome pedagogy. Anyone can look on Wikipedia or read a child’s book about who touched land first. We celebrate Columbus Day because it was the beginning of the greatest nation and civilization to grace the face of the planet.
I have always been amazed at the story of Chirstopher Columbus and the United States of America.
Children in America (I don’t know if this is still true) used to be taught that Columbus took a heroic stand because he maintained that the Earth was round when everyone else in Europe thought it was flat. The fact that this is totally untrue did not stop it from being taught to Americans for generations.
People of the USA believe that Columbus discovered America. Never mind the Vikings, or the Native-Americans (who emmigrated from Northern Asia), it was Columbus. While it’s hard to figure out exactly where Columbus sailed (his records were so bad that there are compteting sites for where Columbus landed first in two different countries), it is pretty obvious that he didn’t get any closer to the USA than Cuba.
Columbus was a man who ventured out of Europe because of his love of God. (This is actually a typo.)
Columbus was a man who ventured out of Europe because of his love of Gold. (Far more accurate.)
He obtained information about where to find gold by torturing the natives. For those of you who favour torture, perhaps you should know that the natives kept telling him that the source of the little bits of gold that Columbus found was in what is now Mexico. Columbus refused to go to Mexico because he believed the natives were lying to him to stop the torture.
Columbus had four voyages to the new world. He was known in his time as a failure. He was arrested during his third voyage and sent back to Spain in chains. He did made a major discovery in the new world, but the discovery was probably syphilis which made him quite insane by the end of his life.
If that is really the type of hero America wants, by all means ignore the true story and teach mythology to your children. You might as well teach them lies about Columbus to get them ready to swallow that “The Earth is 6000 years old” story. Or, you might just teach everyone that the Earth is flat and start the whole trend over again.
“These are merely causes that the left has hijacked in order to pursue a more sinister end, mainly the destruction of individualism and capitalism — also known as ‘the American way.’”
This is it exactly. The leftists don’t care about racism or equality. They care about power. Every tradition or symbol, everything we’re proud of or feel a part of, everything that unites us as a people and a nation–they want to destroy. And all the little guilty halfwit college students clenching their sphincters and maundering about big, awful America are just useful idiots.
2. Tom H. wrote:
Columbus day should be replaced it is an incorrectly perceived and inaccurate historical event.
Peter writes: It’s not that the historical event is innacurate. Columbus just had a better press agent than the Norse.
We need to get rid of all holidays period. People should get no time off or have holidays or weekends any longers. We have an obligation to pay our debt to Obama and spread the wealth. When I get a job I will do my part too. No more time off America. Once my hemorrhoids have healed up I plan on getting a part time job to help out.
26: Northern Lights…good post but now we’ll have to make up a new song.
I think the blog is really pointing out how a group of people can sway a university. I really don’t see it as a bad thing since that is the American way. But I am getting kinda sick of white men being labeled as the new boogie man!
Let it be said: COLUMBUS DISCOVERED AMERICA!!
Or, how about a new holiday, because the feds never mind a day off to celebrate something for nothing day. We could just leave it blank so as to not offend anyone or we could have Diversity Day. During Diversity Day everyone could go to the city center, rant and throw pies at each other, and then have a good cry. As long as the MSM profits by it, and nothing is done, the pc approval should be enourmous. “Come on down to Diversity Day where everybody can have their way!”
The First Amendment does not exist on college campuses. Brown University is
As an American veteran of Italian descent, I am not concerned about Brown University punks. Free people live in a free country because brave people fight and die to give the Brown University punks the right to be punks. God Bless America!
Let me edit my first comment #33. “The First Amendment doesn’t exist on college campuses. Brown University is a college campus: Ergo, the First Amendment doesn’t exist amongst (let me wax poetic) those weenies at Brown University.” I don’t want to brag, especially during my Tennessee sipping whiskey happy hours, but I firmly believe that I am a helluva lot smarter than most of those overpaid tenured leftists clowns who are taking you’re parent’s hard-earned tuition money.
90% of the Native Americans were killed by the flu, small pox, and the common cold. That leaves a lot of space.
I noticed a lot of Native American tribes murdered to get the land they called theirs’. A lot of Native Americans were wronged by Europeans, but we can not go back in time to fix wrongs.
We have to stand together as Americans, and for the rule of law today.
It is simple…They are racist against Italians…It doesn’t seem that way, sure…because they know “spin”..But why else chum up with Turkey?…Because they think “mafia” is COOL…Or “Rome” on HBO is “how it really was”…Especially the Pro-Black crowd…because they want to be “Italians”, which is a particular British fetish…The Italian ganster thing is a movie genre of glamourization that they live for…Cultivated in the 70′s and exploited in the 90′s as a “black gangsta” “phenomenom” or “alpha male” archtype…So you get idiots like Obama fanatics an’ Obama himself…They don’t give a damn that the Italians fought in the US for things like labor laws, 40 hour works weeks..that’s because they immatures…who have survived off labor’s goodwill and tax monies…an’ played toadies and sychophant to the Hollywood jet set….Easier to do that then having to contribute legitimately to the United States society. An’ the more they screw your women, the more children they will bring into this world to protect their bunk. Life is a population(popularity)contest to such types.
..betcha Tony Soprano is gonna be pissed!
I am a healthy part Native American, as are a great, great many caucasians in this country (although far fewer than actually claim they are, including that wretch Ward Churchill). For reasons of historical happenstance (which notably also include the great natural territorial advantage enjoyed by North American geography), I am a living breathing example of the last vestiges of a culture that has been largely bred out of existence by white settlers from Europe. But unlike those who are white but not Native American, I assign no culpability to Columbus. Unlike those who are part African American, I don’t choose to blame the white folks who came here to the exclusion of the black folks that sold their ancestors to them, nor the white folks today for keeping me down. I don’t choose to blame the Italians because their Spanish-flag-sailing ancestor at great personal risk managed to sail a wooden boat all the way to North America. And I don’t bitch like the middle easteners do about all the math and science that the europeans purportedly stole. And most of all, I don’t really give a hoot what whitey thinks about what whitey’s ancestors did. And in the interest of full disclosure, I basically am whitey, more or less.
I’m an American. It’s where I was born, geographically and in history. I lament the historical atrocities that permitted its existence, but I do not forget the tremendous and repeated life sacrifices made predominantly by white europeans to ensure the liberty and respect for human rights that we all currently enjoy, and that the civilized world currently benefits from. And so I honor them equally and in good faith. And most importantly, I don’t confuse the actions of the deceased with the actions of the living.
And so, do you know what I have to say to a bunch of stupid, over-privileged, white kids whose families on average got here much later than my ancestors, both native and european? When they claim to speak for my grandmother, and multitudes of prior ancestors? Who spend their post-adolescence belly-aching about how the world and this country is not fair, all the while reaping the benefits of both the atrocities and the sacrifices committed by white europeans — and being sheltered against the real world consequences of talking smack in any venue where it really matters? The same thing I say to the african americans who believe that whitey came to africa, hunted them down, and put them on a boat without any person of color playing any role in the horrible atrocity of human slavery. Which also happens to be the same thing I say to the San Franciscans of the world who believe that whites, and American whites in particular, are the evilest of the racial categories that exist in the world today:
Put a sock in it, clown. If you want to defile Columbus, dig him up and do it. But that says more about you than it says about Columbus.
If the only difference between people was that some of them had red hair and some had green, you can bet your bottom dollar that they would be killing each other based on that for thousands of years until historical happenstance created an environment in which the rule of law was respected and sustained. I sure as heck wouldn’t apologize for the resulting government that despite a history with serious moral flaws managed to overcome this to single-handedly underwrite the maximum human rights for the maximum number of people the world has ever seen. I view that as a success story that a lot of folks died for. So honor them all.
Columbus’ sailing across the Atlantic, the open sea with no navigational guides other than those for North and South (the stars) was an amazing feat. See the book Longitude about the effort to find a navigation guide for East and West. Columbus’ feat was an extraordinary feat of seamanship.
As for the Norse (and perhaps Irish) discoveries of North America, even more the Indians – they did not know that they were discovering a new continent. (Columbus thought he was discovering a new route to India, hence the name of the islands as the West Indies.
As for American Indians: they benefitted from the later conquests by Spain, France, and England. The ones in Central America got rid of the horrible rule of the Aztecs. Others fought with each other continually; e.g., the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth made a treaty to join the local Indians for forty years to fight the enemies of these Indians. See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, on the great gift of peace, what the American Indians got from Spain, France, England, the United States, and Canada. There are many descendants of American Indians flourishing, including Winston Churchill and the descendants of Pocahontas. Those who live on reservations are not attacked and can leave if they want to.
To all you punks at Brown University, I have a class assignment for you. Determine whether it is constitutional for a Kenyan-born man to be President of the United States. I’ll give you punks a hint on where to begin your research. Read the Constitution of the United States.
#39 LennyB: I just knocked down another shot of Tennessee sipping whiskey so I could salute you for your well-spoken comments.
Lenny B. A well written comment. Bravo!
Actually, when I was a senior in High School (about 1964) I am to the conclusion that Columbus was famous because he was the LAST guy to discover America.
He know the world was round and he knew about North America.
He planned to slip below.
He did not know about South America and he underestimated the size of the world which is why he named the place “the West Indies”.
Maybe we should just do what some of those Euro countries do and call these holidays “Bank Holidays”. We used to celebrate these holidays with the actual (perceived) date of birth or event – instead of some arbitrary Monday holiday bill so we could have a three day weekend. Why is Presidents’ Day on a Monday but MLK gets his day on his actual birthday? This sounds racist to me.
As for the Brown University students- doesn’t it cost a lot to attend class there? Where do those parents get the money- are they capitalists? Those ungrateful brats are trying to annihilate the hand that feeds them
In 8th grade I remember my English teacher had us “celebrate” Columbus Day by making hand drawn “Wanted” posters of Christopher Columbus and offering $25,000 for his arrest. Which she then encouraged us to tape up all over our highschool. At the time we were too innocent to realize what she was doing. But it makes me angry now that I look back on it. As do all the other liberal teachers I had in public school. Like my 2nd grade teacher telling us that U.S. fighter planes were instruments of war and death which made me terrorified of planes for years. Or my 10th grade history teacher telling us that “Jews should have been resettled in the Brazilian rain forest instead of Israel”. And my 7th grade science teacher telling us that the 9/11 attacks were the result of past American atrocities. And just the other day one of my college professors was giving a lecture on human rights and how guaranteed “livable” wages, housing and health coverage were all basic human rights. Something seriously needs to be done about political indoctrination in our education system.
Apparently Italian-Americans aren’t well organized at Brown. Columbus Day is the only national holiday honoring an Italian.
This nonsense has been going on for a long time on the left coast; the schools here haven’t taken Columbus day off in probably 20 years. I think this boils down to the battle of the ethnicities; Columbus day will continue to be celebrated in New York City, Boston, and Philly, where there are still remnants of Italian communities, and will be vanquished elswhere.
Gotta make way for Obama day…
What are the misdeeds of MLK, smoking, maybe having a mistress? OMG, what are we to do with this monster?
You people know very well what was done to the central and south american Natives. The Spanish systematically wiped out the entire Mayan culture. They enslaved, killed, raped, introduced diseases, pillaged the land and resources to no end. Why the hell would we honor this idiot. Besides the Vikings actually discovered America 500 years b4 Columbus.
As for the US, we also know very well how atrocious whites have been to Natives and Blacks. No need to go into any detail, it’s well documented. So what should we do, ignore it, try to place blame on the left for having ulterior motives for talking about it?
Now that doesn’t mean we should hate our country, I disagree with anyone who advocates that. But we should definitely admit what was done was wrong, and move forward to foster a better understanding of the concerns of the people and groups that were harmed. This country has an ugly history running simultaneously with it’s unprecedented democracy and glory-filled accomplishments. We just can no longer brush our ugly past under the rug and pretend that it never happen, or worse yet, proclaim that it was long ago and we present day folks had nothing to do with it.
JackT @ #48 needs to go back and read prior posts before submitting one of his own. Most of the points he raises have already been addressed (and in many cases, debunked) before he even started.
I’m an Ivy League graduate, University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. We used to love having the Brown University football team come to Franklin Field.
The cheer was “What color is horse shit?” The response was “Brown, Brown, Brown.” The cheer was more fun that the game.
I see the Brownies haven’t changed much.
@48: “Now that doesn’t mean we should hate our country, I disagree with anyone who advocates that. But we should definitely admit what was done was wrong, and move forward to foster a better understanding of the concerns of the people and groups that were harmed.”
What exactly does “move forward to foster a better understanding” even mean? Do you even know what that means? You are the one who wrote it, I assume you meant something by it. Whenever I write something I try to mean something specific, I’m sure you do the same. So what does it mean? Because one of the hallmarks of well-meaning but philosophically bankrupt liberals is that they like to say stuff that sounds pretty and nice but doesn’t actually really mean anything tangible and is instead itself an end, because it’s actually the airing of a grievance that is desired, and not a solution to anything. Usually a grievance that happened to someone else. And I’ll be honest, whenever I hear people talk like that, it means that they really have nothing to say at all (and in fact their primary motivation is to control the opinions of others on all things). For instance, if you said, “We should blame the descendants of white people for the actions of their forebears”, or, “we should all as Americans apologize to the world for the actions committed by Americans who lived before us without acknowledging the evils of other nations and of the indigenous peoples also”, or, “Hey everybody, I think the Jews should apologize for killing Jesus”, well, I would respect those sentiments more because at least it says something affirmative that should be done.
And by the way, it was long ago, and I didn’t have anything to do with it. And neither did you, no offense intended. Your heart is in the right place, but yes, even you had nothing to do with the atrocities committed on planet earth before you were born.
I personally think it would be great to solve the world’s problems and resolve man’s inhumanity to man once and for all. But that ain’t gonna happen, because people have free will. And if one opposes free will, how human is one, anyway?
#46 : Blackwater: Why don’t you post pictures of her face,superimposed on a wanted sign(child molestation could be a viable charge),and leave them where her class can see them. Use you tube and fa
I agree that political correctness has run amok, but comparing Columbus to Martin Luther King? Come on. It makes your piece more sensational but does little for the integrity of your premise. Columbus was genocidal, no doubt. To claim this as some important landmark in our heritage worth celebrating is silly –even if during his time it was the norm to consider most of the rest of the world inferior to humanity and it reasonable to kill them without mercy.
Are the Brown students hypocrites? Certainly. Was Columbus a mass murderer? Absolutely. Is this a liberal vs. conservative issue? Not really. Just a reasonable question of whether we should celebrate a shoddy navigator with a crew of convicts who intentionally slaughtered innocents.
“White people, ranging from European colonizers to the government of the United States, have committed innumerable brutal offenses against Native Americans over the past 500 years. Honoring Columbus with a holiday glosses over a racist, blood-stained facet of our history and glamorizes the past as victorious manifest destiny.”
We’re not racists. We slaughter, oppress, and brutalize people of all races, colors and creeds.
For what it’s worth, there are no such things as “native Americans.” At best, the earliest inhabitants of North America could be referred to as “Siberian-Americans.” The only truly native peoples in the world are the early inhabitants of the Olduvai Gorge and the Great Rift Valley. Every one else on the planet is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants.
Christopher Columbus is an evil, cold, bloodthirsty, genocidal murderer who killed native Americans !. He means nothing to me !.