Happy Columbus Day!
I know that to some people,, that is a phrase that gets them all fired up with rage, but it is Columbus Day—a federal holiday—and whether some people want to acknowledge it or not, today is a day that we celebrate Christopher Columbus, and the Nina, the Pinto, and the Santa Maria.
There are those who believe that Columbus is the last person we should be celebrating because of his supposed mistreatment of the people who were already here when he got here, but those people forget that this mistreatment of people who were already here certainly was around way before Columbus reached these shores.
People who were already here were mistreating other groups of people who were already here way before Columbus and the other Europeans who eventually came here got to these shores, so the supposed “indigenous people” were not as innocent as we make them out to be.
Sure, a lot of the Columbus story that we were taught in school is probably is a nice myth, but Columbus wasn’t necessarily the only aggressor here, not by a long shot.
But back to Columbus Day …
This is a day of pride for Italian Americans, who have made Columbus one of their own, because he supposedly was one of their own.
Many Hispanics have also adopted him as one of their own, and know him as Cristobal Colon.
There are also some who believe that Columbus was Jewish, and came here as much to explore tha new world as he did because of the oppression he felt of his own religious beliefs in his home country.
We will probably never know the true story of why he came here, but what he did was momentous, opening up the new world for the rest of the world as an explorer of what was then the unknown.
Today we celebrate what he did, and Columbus Day has been an official holiday in the United States for 85 years.
I have absolutely no problem with this holiday, with the pride Americans feel about what Columbus supposedly did, and the parades that we have, particularly in New York, are among the highlights of the year.
But others don’t look at it that way.
During the past couple of years, there are some among us—troublemakers, PC/Woke anarchists and others—who believe that celebrating Columbus and his achievements is akin to us celebrating, say, Hitler and what he did.
They have besmirched Columbus’ achievements to the point that they have desecrated many of the statues and other things we have in public to celebrate the man and his importance to our country’s history.
They throw paint on his statues, behead his statues, and sometimes even take the memorials down illegally.
And the media buys into this lock, stock and barrel, and hook, line and sinker.
I don’t know about other places, but I watched a bit of the New York local news over the weekend, and the only station that heralded the coming of the day and the parade was ABC Channel 7, which probably did so because they are actually going to broadcast the parade later today.
The other channels’ news shows completely side-stepped Columbus Day, not even highlighting the day in their weather updates like they normally do with any big holiday.
And the utterance of the very phrase “Columbus Day” was not heard on any of these local newscasts.
Even though it is a federal holiday, more than a dozen states do not recognize Columbus Day as a holiday anymore, with most recognizing “Indigenous Peoples Day” instead.
Look, there is a lot of myth intertwined with the truth in both the Columbus and American Indians’ stories, but for some to besmirch the legacy of Christopher Columbus is just wrong, period.
If anything, if you want to keep on playing on myths, have a separate “Indigenous Peoples Day” and leave Columbus alone.
I mean, did George Washington really cut down the cherry tree and confess to his misdeed, saying “I cannot tell a lie.”
Sometimes what is true and what is fantasy kind of blur together, and the history of Christopher Columbus, and that of Native Americans, are also blurred together to make things palatable for all of those involved and for us as Americans.
Columbus wasn’t a perfect man, nor were the Indians, but there is nothing wrong with conflating the truth with the myth when we celebrate Columbus Day.
Leave the day alone as it is.
There are also some who believe that Columbus was Jewish, and came here as much to explore tha new world as he did because of the oppression he felt of his own religious beliefs in his home country.
We will probably never know the true story of why he came here, but what he did was momentous, opening up the new world for the rest of the world as an explorer of what was then the unknown.
Today we celebrate what he did, and Columbus Day has been an official holiday in the United States for 85 years.
I have absolutely no problem with this holiday, with the pride Americans feel about what Columbus supposedly did, and the parades that we have, particularly in New York, are among the highlights of the year.
But others don’t look at it that way.
During the past couple of years, there are some among us—troublemakers, PC/Woke anarchists and others—who believe that celebrating Columbus and his achievements is akin to us celebrating, say, Hitler and what he did.
They have besmirched Columbus’ achievements to the point that they have desecrated many of the statues and other things we have in public to celebrate the man and his importance to our country’s history.
They throw paint on his statues, behead his statues, and sometimes even take the memorials down illegally.
And the media buys into this lock, stock and barrel, and hook, line and sinker.
I don’t know about other places, but I watched a bit of the New York local news over the weekend, and the only station that heralded the coming of the day and the parade was ABC Channel 7, which probably did so because they are actually going to broadcast the parade later today.
The other channels’ news shows completely side-stepped Columbus Day, not even highlighting the day in their weather updates like they normally do with any big holiday.
And the utterance of the very phrase “Columbus Day” was not heard on any of these local newscasts.
Even though it is a federal holiday, more than a dozen states do not recognize Columbus Day as a holiday anymore, with most recognizing “Indigenous Peoples Day” instead.
Look, there is a lot of myth intertwined with the truth in both the Columbus and American Indians’ stories, but for some to besmirch the legacy of Christopher Columbus is just wrong, period.
If anything, if you want to keep on playing on myths, have a separate “Indigenous Peoples Day” and leave Columbus alone.
I mean, did George Washington really cut down the cherry tree and confess to his misdeed, saying “I cannot tell a lie.”
Sometimes what is true and what is fantasy kind of blur together, and the history of Christopher Columbus, and that of Native Americans, are also blurred together to make things palatable for all of those involved and for us as Americans.
Columbus wasn’t a perfect man, nor were the Indians, but there is nothing wrong with conflating the truth with the myth when we celebrate Columbus Day.
Leave the day alone as it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.