[TheZookie007]

Some people call it Columbus Day. I do so no longer.

Democracy Now!: "On Columbus Day, Indigenous Urge Celebration of Native Culture & Teaching of the Americas’ Genocide"

[pedonbio]

Historians of the recent generation have done excellent work integrating other fields--Geology, archeology, geography, even bacteriology--into efforts to try to understand pre-Columbian society and civilization. I heartily recommend two books, 1491 and 1493 by Charles C. Mann, which discuss recent work trying to reconstruct that huge chunk of our collective past. A great deal is now known, particularly about the civilization of the Mexican Highlands that was unknowable a generation ago.

[rtpoe]

Ho-hum. Beating that dead horse again, are we? I, for one, am not going to condemn the past for the sins of the present.

Look, we all know that 'Columbus Day' is really 'Italian-American Day', just like St Patrick's Day is Irish-American Day, and Cinco de Mayo is Mexican-American Day.

And FDR made it a holiday just so he could get the Italian-American vote.

[TheZookie007]

Ho-hum. Beating that dead horse again, are we? I, for one, am not going to condemn the past for the sins of the present.

Of course it would be a dead horse to you. You're directly benefiting from the genocide.

[Djoser]

Italian American? Nah! I can't believe this holiday is an invention of the US people. If someone invented it, it was the spaniards for sure.

I condemn what was done in the past with the original inhabitants of this continent, from Greenland to Cape Horn. It was indeed a clash of cultures. However what is done is done. We must learn from the mistakes of the past. I am the first to admitt that if Europeans didn't colonize after 1492, I wouldn't be here, nor my African ancestors, and I am part Amerindian as well.

In the end, yes it was a genocide, but the diseases brought by the Europeans killed much more people then the steel, the gunpowder and the negligence. Even before the Europenas made direct contact with the Amerindians, flu, chicken pox, and all sort of menial (and not so menial) diseases decimated cultures.

Im my country there have been so many names for October 12: Columbus day, 'Hispanity' day, Discovery of America day, Culture Encounter Day. Now we celebrate the diversity pf races and cultures as a whole, not forgetting what Columbus did 520 years ago, not the suffering of entire civilizations as they were wiped out by mankind's greed and cruelty

[pedonbio]

Meh. One of the best "discussions" I've ever heard of the only sensible view of history is a routine the Firesign Theater did about fifty years ago called "Temporarily Humboldt County".

I live in a small corner of the U.S. which has, across the past 5,000 years, been under the dominion of, in successive reverse order, the U.S., Britain, Russia, France, Spain, and the Salish. Before that it was mostly under ice.

While we are discussing nationality, can we consider Columbus (who never used that name) to be Italian, and not Genoese, when "Italy" did not exist until the 1870s, any more than Goethe can be considered "German", since he died fifty years before "Germany" existed.

[TheZookie007]

"...so I know a lot of Italian-Americans love Columbus because he's their dude, but Italians: you got a lot of dudes! I mean, why not have Joe diMaggio Day instead? Right? He was a Hall of Fame baseball player with a record 56-game hitting streak! Look at the stats! Career .325 batting average. Seven straight seasons of over 100 RBIs. And most importantly: no career genocides. The only Indians Joe diMaggio ever slaughtered were from Cleveland!"

-- Hari Kondabolu on Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell

[TheZookie007]

The Oatmeal: "Christopher Columbus was awful, but this other guy was not"

The point I'm trying to drive home is this:

Christopher Columbus was awful.

He discovered the New World much like a meteorite discovered the dinosaurs.

And good ol' Chris Columbus,

sex slaver, mass murderer, and champion of sociopathic imperialism,

has his own federal holiday.

This is an honor shared by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. 

I repeat:

THE FATHER OF THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE IS HONORED ON THE SAME LEVEL AS ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

But Columbus Day is an American tradition! -- Some ignorant, white man from Bumretch, Nebrahoma

Columbus Day was established in the 1930s by a male-only Catholic organization known as the Knights of Columbus. They wanted a male Catholic role model their kids could look up to, so they pressured Roosevelt into making it a federal holiday.

Columbus Day is not an American tradition.
It's a recent mistake.

[Robin_K2]

If you want to get technical about it, Columbus never set foot on North, Central or South America. He discovered Cuba and a few of the Bermudas.

[Ronald Ray Gun]

Forgive me if I can't get my jimmies rustled over a guy who died centuries ago.  
Anyhow, I don't think of it as "Columbus was a great guy day" as much as it's "It sure is great that America was discovered" day.
The same way I don't think of MLK day as "Guy who beat his wife day", but "Equal rights are cool day".
On Presidents Day, I only celebrate the cool Presidents like Lincoln, Reagan and Polk.

[pedonbio]

...but you still light candles at the altar of G. W. Bush.

[solvegas]

Back in October 12, 1956 when I was born in Mexico, it was called Dia del descubrio or Dia de Colon ( Day of discovery or Day of Columbus ) and it was not a big deal in many ways. It's now called Dia De La Raza. We were taught that the Spaniards were cruel in killing the Aztecs ( or Mexica as they called themselves ) but that the Aztecs were not necessarily a people to be sympathetic for. After all, their religion was based on human sacrifice ( to please the angry Sun God, father of all gods ) and cannibalism, which was something the priests and nobility engaged in. They were vicious and warlike toward their neighbors, where many of the victims for their daily ritual of human sacrifice came from, and hated for such.  Which explains how 520 spaniards led by a capable and greedy commander, Hernan Cortez, were able to destroy a empire with a capital of close to one million inhabitants, Tenochtitlan ( Mexico City now ). He allied with the enemies of the Aztecs and then betrayed the allies. Of course, sickness was their main ally. Since the local population was mostly useless for work in the Americas due to disease, black slaves mostly bought from Arab traders were brought over. Mind you, slavery already existed before any european set foot anywhere in the Americas so that wasn't anything new. Man's inhumanity to man is a universal sin. But this idiotic belief that somehow europeans destroyed paradise is wrong. Paradise does not exist. So stop looking for it and make the best of your life. And would it make people feel better if instead of europeans it had been the Chinese for example ?  If history has taught anything is that no one hands are clean.

[pedonbio]

( to please the angry Sun God, father of all gods )

Pissed off Sun God is the worst kind!   
 

[Hark]

Of course it would be a dead horse to you. You're directly benefiting from the genocide.

It never ceases to amaze how many tears you shed for people long dead for centuries.

Or ones still alive. 

[rtpoe]

In an attempt to change tracks...

Mike Tanier makes a good case for changing the name of the Washington Redskins to the Washington Red Clouds

http://miketanier.sportsonearthblog.com/the-washington-red-clouds/

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/i_r/redcloud.htm

http://www.dlncoalition.org/dln_nation/chief_red_cloud.htm

Minimal change to the name, they get to keep the colors and the logo.