A day late, but just wanted to share this bit of history. I’ve read about these issues, and I try to argue them every year, and people get all upset about it, but I don’t care, I hate rewriting of history. This guy does a great job. Columbus was used as a political pawn in his lifetime and in the years that followed his death and again centuries later. I think my favorite debunking in this is the statement, “nobody cared much about Columbus until 1828 when his name was used to promote Italians in America.” Meanwhile, just 18 years earlier, an entire country was named after him.
I saw that. The dude got on my nerves with his voice, so I only listen to half of it. I still prefer to call it Native American Day or Indigenous People Day.
He addresses that briefly. I like the move to Indigenous day, but I hope we get passed this phase where it’s “I hate Columbus” day. I would have preferred something like “World Day” or something that celebrates cultures connecting.
You have some ruts in your outlook. It never occurred to me that Columbus Day is indicative of bias against white people. But you thought it straight off.
You are clearly wrong unless you are speaking about recent years, possibly. But Columbus Day was established as a holiday when our culture was more biased towards whites than now.
Besides Columbus looks pretty white to me, anyway.
I didn’t say Columbus Day itself is anti-white, I said the current criticism of Columbus is motivated purely by anti-white sentiment. If we replaced Columbus Day with some other day for a white figure, people will be even more angry.
I never thought of anti Columbus sentiments as being anti white.
Pretty sure Columbus is the poster child for European conquering and conquistadoring and slaughtering of the innocent indigenous people. It's mostly due to timing. Previous contact was nebulous, then the Spanish colonization followed quickly on the heals of Columbus. My "defense" of Columbus is, he didn't call for that or lead the invasions. In today's terms it would be unthinkable to land armed men on a nation of less developed people and start building forts, but that was normal at the time.
It was wrong, but Columbus didn’t invent the idea. So I’m not defending the actions, more like critiquing the bad history. By focusing on the one man, misunderstanding his motivations, and the entire culture that created him and supported him, we miss the opportunity to understand ourselves and our part in it. By getting Columbus wrong, we miss the critique of how richer nations should interact with poorer ones, and what made them richer in the first place. That critique is directly related to what is happening today.
Lausten: “Pretty sure Columbus is the poster child for European conquering and conquistadoring and slaughtering of the innocent indigenous people…”
TimB: Omg, could Columbus be an ancestor of Oneguy’s? I can’t keep up. Do we want Columbus to be replaced by the white Vikings in historical honor and notoriety because they are possibly a shade whiter than Columbus? I wonder about how the Vikings did not, afaik spread civilization destroying diseases like the southern Europeans did. Actually I’m all for a whitey-white-white Viking’s Day. Not because they are white, but because they are Vikings.
In today’s terms it would be unthinkable to land armed men on a nation of less developed people and start building forts, but that was normal at the time.
I never thought of anti Columbus sentiments as being anti white. I thought it was being anti-destruction-of-indigenous-peoples.
You’re out of the loop about what young people are like today. As far as most non-whites (and white leftists) are concerned Whites in general destroyed Indians; and they’re correct. These people don’t care about historical accuracy, they hate modern whites revering their conquering ancestors.
I figured you'd say that. We just did the opposite in Syria. We at least pretend to have reasons for sending troops and we don't take over. At worst we influence elections.
