Why is Columbus Day still a thing? (1 Viewer)

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    SystemShock

    SystemShock

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    Why is Cristoforo Colombo still celebrated?
    He was a flaming racist and slave trader who didn't discover shirt. What's there to celebrate?
     
    Echo said:
    Christopher Columbus is a very important historical figure. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean 4 times which allowed European colonization of the Americas. He also made contact with the Caribbean as well as Central and South America. He's possibly the most important explorer in human history. He without a doubt deserves to be celebrated and honored.

    1024px-Viajes_de_colon_en.svg.png
    Click to expand...
    Aknowleded as an important historical figure, yes. Celebrated no. There is a BIG difference in the 2.
     
    The government of Trinidad and Tobago wants to remove a depiction of three ships used by Christopher Columbus from its coat of arms, in a move hailed by a historian as important in addressing historical inaccuracies and shrugging off colonial identities.

    The Caribbean country’s prime minister, Keith Rowley, announced a plan on 18 August to replace the ships with a representation of Trinidad and Tobago’s national instrument, the steelpan.

    The ships depicted are those used by Columbus in his expeditions to the Caribbean, which paved the way for centuries of European colonial rule and enslavement in the region.


    In recent years, Caribbean countries have pushed back against what they see as a false narrative that Columbus discovered their islands, which, in fact, were populated when he arrived. Some have even removed references to the Italian explorer’s discovery in national holidays.

    But there has been public concern that removing the ships from the coat of arms would erase important moments from Trinidad and Tobago’s history.

    Dr Claudius Fergus, a historian who chairs the National Committee on Reparations, said: “This is not an attack on the history of the Caribbean. It’s not an attempt to erase but rather to correct … Every generation has an obligation to reinterpret their history and to correct the falsehoods on which some of that history would have been written.”………..

    www.theguardian.com

    Historian hails Trinidad plan to remove Columbus ships from coat of arms

    PM’s proposal to replace ships with steelpan wins applause from his party but some in capital voice opposing views
    www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
     
    countries change their flags all the time. not a big deal. the majority of the people in the country are probably for it, so anyone else shouldn't care..
     
    Interesting article. New Orleans role in Columbus Day
    =========

    Another Columbus Day will soon be upon us, and many Americans will spend the occasion debating the propriety of observing the holiday.

    The explorer’s arrival in the New World in 1492 came at horrendous cost to indigenous people.
These are important conversations, but they’ll likely overlook an important bit of history — because Columbus Day’s origins are much bloodier and more complicated than many realize.

    Its modern place as a national holiday is essentially an accident — an unexpected result of toxic immigration politics of the Gilded Age, racial violence in the South and the actions of a mostly forgotten president.


    The story begins in Louisiana. As Richard Gambino chronicled in his excellent book “Vendetta,” a volley of shotgun fire cut down New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy on Oct. 15, 1890.

    Mortally wounded, Hennessy was asked for the identity of his assailants. His reply was a racial slur for Italian Americans.

    Italian immigrants were having a rough go of it in late 19th-century America. Many had reached the United States following the Civil War — fleeing instability at home and seeking opportunity on this side of the Atlantic.

    Unfortunately, their eagerness to work, readiness to accept low pay and strong cultural cohesion (especially on matters of family, faith and language) stirred resentment among Americans already here.


    In New Orleans, these tensions were exacerbated by a spike in crime that was blamed on Italians bringing their supposed “Mafioso” culture to America.

    Hatred for the immigrants practically became official city policy; as the mayor said on the record to reporters, Italians in New Orleans lacked “honor, truth, pride, religion, or any quality that goes to make a good citizen. … Except the Poles we know of no other nationality which is [as] objectionable as a people.”


    And so, Hennessy’s assassination catalyzed an awful cycle of ethnic violence in New Orleans. Taking the cue of their chief’s dying words, police fanned out under orders to “arrest every Italian you come across.”

    But subsequent mistrials and acquittals of apprehended suspects prompted thousands of frustrated citizens to break into the city jail on the morning of March 14, 1891, and kill every Italian they could find.

    Bodies dangled from French Quarter lampposts by the afternoon. The murders would be described by Gambino and other historians as “the largest lynching in American history.”………

    Enter Benjamin Harrison, a man who embodied the stereotype of a Gilded Age president (that is, bearded, Midwestern and unfairly forgotten).

    Privately appalled by his country’s anti-immigrant politics, outraged by Louisiana’s inability to hold the mob accountable and desperate to patch things up with Italy, Harrison took a remarkably bold course of action.

    First, he unilaterally used White House funds to pay apology money to the families of the lynching’s victims — a politically unpopular move that enraged Congress, which even attempted to censure the president over the gesture.


    Second, Harrison noticed that the upcoming date of Oct. 21, 1892, would be the 400th anniversary of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus landing in the New World.

    It was a unique and convenient opportunity to publicly acknowledge the place of Italians in American history — and deliver an implicit civics lesson to racists across the country.

    An executive proclamation soon went out from the White House that declared the anniversary “a general holiday for the people of the United States.

    On that day let the people, so far as possible, cease from toil and devote themselves to such exercises as may best express honor to the discoverer and their appreciation of the great achievements of the four completed centuries of American life.”………



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    www.washingtonpost.com
     
    SystemShock said:
    Why is Cristoforo Colombo still celebrated?
    He was a flaming racist and slave trader who didn't discover shirt. What's there to celebrate?
    Click to expand...
    Lol, you knew him personally, right? Or, more likely, the tv told you that and since a lot of people see everything as racist, there you are. Why do you deny history? What good does it do you?
     
    miketx said:
    Lol, you knew him personally, right? Or, more likely, the tv told you that and since a lot of people see everything as racist, there you are. Why do you deny history? What good does it do you?
    Click to expand...
    Denying history are you? Tsk, tsk. Columbus discovered nothing. There were people living there already. And his “discovery” led to slavery and destruction of indigenous peoples. In addition, Columbus Day only became a thing when the image of Italian immigrants needed polishing due to xenophobia about them including their “bringing” the mafioso into this country.
     
    bird said:
    Denying history are you? Tsk, tsk. Columbus discovered nothing. There were people living there already. And his “discovery” led to slavery and destruction of indigenous peoples. In addition, Columbus Day only became a thing when the image of Italian immigrants needed polishing due to xenophobia about them including their “bringing” the mafioso into this country.
    Click to expand...
    lol
     
    miketx said:
    Lol, you knew him personally, right? Or, more likely, the tv told you that and since a lot of people see everything as racist, there you are. Why do you deny history? What good does it do you?
    Click to expand...

    The next contestant on the Price is Right.

    For starters, what history am I denying? Colombo did not discover the continent. There were people already here, great empires really, with millions of people, across the continent. We also have evidence that, among Europeans, Vikings arrived in the continent centuries before him.

    The TV told me nothing. You don't know this, because you are new, but I was born in Mexico. And Mexico has a long, well documented history with the Conquista, which we learn in school, not TV.
     

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