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I always new that Columbus was an opportunist and a slave trader who did not deserve hero worship.
In the US, it was a lot of Italian-American organizations and fraternal societies that are responsible for the monuments you see celebrating Columbus. Personally I wish they would celebrate someone else like Leonardo da Vinci (oh ... wait ... he was gay!) or Michelangelo (uh oh ... he was also gay!) ... okay why don't we celebrate Giuseppe Garibaldi (who actually lived in the US for a brief period!) or Enrico Ferme - true Italian heroes.
I always new that Columbus was an opportunist and a slave trader who did not deserve hero worship.
In the US, it was a lot of Italian-American organizations and fraternal societies that are responsible for the monuments you see celebrating Columbus. Personally I wish they would celebrate someone else like Leonardo da Vinci (oh ... wait ... he was gay!) or Michelangelo (uh oh ... he was also gay!) ... okay why don't we celebrate Giuseppe Garibaldi (who actually lived in the US for a brief period!) or Enrico Ferme - true Italian heroes.
Or we could celebrate Amerigo Vespucci? Get it? Amerigo/America?
We should NOT celebrate Columbus Day nor should we continue to celebrate ANY person in our nation's past based on the moral relativism of today, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Really, other than Obama, none of our white male Christian mostly all Protestant presidents were diverse enough to represent the "real" America. Only Obama represents the real America.
Columbus Day should forever be called and celebrated as "Diversity and Inclusion Day." All statues of Columbus should be demolished and in their place build multicultural salad bowls.
To me, the issue isn't wether Columbus had faults or not.
For example, I deeply admire many things about George Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr., despite knowing that both men (like everybody) was deeply flawed in some ways. But we celebrate them for what they intentionally did for us. In the case of Washington, he committed himself to independence and then to forging a lasting system of governing the young United States. In the case of King, he committed himself to racial justice in such a way that not only advanced that cause but advanced it in as peaceful a way as possible, avoiding what might otherwise have been a much bloodier path to civil rights.
Columbus, on the other hand, didn't attempt anything for us at all. He happened upon the Americas while searching for a route for merchants to more profitably trade with India and China. While not necessarily a bad thing - and indeed, enterprise has all sorts of useful benefits - it simply does not compare to the self-sacrifice of, again for example, Washington and King. That he happened to do something that benefits me (finding the Americas, which lead to Spanish and then eventually British colonialism, which led to independence and the nation in which I now live) is pleasing to me, but no reason to praise a man who never intended such a thing to happen. Columbus was trying to advance his own career and profit. Again, I have no issue with that. So was Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford and Bill Gates. But you don't see me demanding holidays to celebrate them.
So my issue with Columbus Day isn't that Columbus was not a good man, it is that Columbus simply never intended that which we are glad resulted from what he did. Why celebrate a man for what he inadvertently did? That makes no sense. Beyond that, by handing out a holiday for such an accidental series of events we diminish the holidays we have for those like Washington, King, and our veterans.
The intense attachment some Americans have for honoring a Genoan in the employ of the Spanish crown in his quest for glory and riches is just odd.
Or we could celebrate Amerigo Vespucci? Get it? Amerigo/America?
We should NOT celebrate Columbus Day nor should we continue to celebrate ANY person in our nation's past based on the moral relativism of today, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Really, other than Obama, none of our white male Christian mostly all Protestant presidents were diverse enough to represent the "real" America. Only Obama represents the real America.
Columbus Day should forever be called and celebrated as "Diversity and Inclusion Day." All statues of Columbus should be demolished and in their place build multicultural salad bowls.
Cutting off a person's hands and making him wear them around his neck isn't moral in any historical era.
Last edited by geofra; 10-12-2013 at 09:03 PM..
Reason: mispelling
Or we could celebrate Amerigo Vespucci? Get it? Amerigo/America?
We should NOT celebrate Columbus Day nor should we continue to celebrate ANY person in our nation's past based on the moral relativism of today, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Really, other than Obama, none of our white male Christian mostly all Protestant presidents were diverse enough to represent the "real" America. Only Obama represents the real America.
Columbus Day should forever be called and celebrated as "Diversity and Inclusion Day." All statues of Columbus should be demolished and in their place build multicultural salad bowls.
So only Obama represents the "real" America...solely because he is half black and none of the other white presidents in history can, because they aren't half black?
I always thought Leif Eriksson was the man to "discover" North America. Viking pride
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