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Columbus’s Greatest Crime
Slavery, advanced weapons technology and countless micro aggressions by the first European invaders of America were nothing compared to the devastation caused by the Old World diseases they brought, particularly smallpox. How amazing is it that we are discovering the wonders of wokeness at the same time we submit to the magic of social distancing and porous masks and have thus suddenly found Cristoforo Columbo at the center of it all, like some one-man warp in the fabric of time.
If only Columbus and his guys had worn a mask and kept social distance from indigenous American people (or at least from those they were not hitting with their swords made of fine Toledo steel), tens of millions of lives could have been saved from smallpox-filled exhaled droplets.
How cool, how timely is it to realize Columbus’ greatest crime was not following (current?) CDC guidelines.
You may argue that it is absurdly anachronistic to apply current social expectations as a criteria by which to judge behavior that took place five centuries ago. But Columbus was white and “systemic” racism is not bound by space and time which you would know if you were not a racist.
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Didn’t Columbus and his crew bring syphilis back from the Americas to Europe after getting it from the natives? Mask and condoms should have been worn (if only Isabella had ponied up a little more money for the N-95s and the Trojan family packs….)
No masks or condoms. The guy was epidemic central. If he had found the route to Asia he probably would have hit the wet markets first to score some pangolin tartare and bat burritos.
What is Systematic Racism exactly? Anyone?
Racism that only other people are actually guilty of. Original sin for those who don’t believe in sin.
All disparities between races are the result of racism. Race is immutable and determinative. To suggest that such disparities could be caused by other factors is to deny the essential role of race and is itself racist. Race explains all and is thus “systemic.” How many fingers am I holding up, Winston, and why does race determine that number?
I agree with the left in terms of the bad things the Spanish arrival in the Americas did. Where they are completely wrong is what measures could have been taken to prevent it. Immigration restrictions and strong national defense would have blown those Spanish toothpicks right out of the water.
The Columbus smallpox thing is dumb. Some European was going to cross the ocean at about that time and someone on that boat was going to have smallpox. It was inevitable. People move and contagious diseases spread. Don’t blame Columbus, it was not like he was doing risky gain-of-function experiments with novel corona viruses in a law with lax safety standards in the middle of the most populous country’s transportation hub. Now that would be criminal.
It’s Racism coded into the social Operating System.
It really does not matter what any of the people in the existing statues did. The lost the war so they need to be tore down and new statues to the winners put up. In the future statues if allowed at all will be MLK, Malcom X, Jesse Jackson or many minority individuals we have yet to hear from. The victors get to write history and put up monuments. The victors are not anybody from the white tribes.
Cross out race, replace with “class” and you’ve got Marx. Now who is the proletariat, and who is the Bourgeoisie? Pretty darned handy if you are a middle-class POC
Who can forget the beautiful culture of Aztec human sacrifice which was supplanted by the Europeans and their hateful Jesus?
It is the systematic critique of everything as if it were racist in its conception. A specific form of grief-mongering practiced by people who believe that they or their never do well neighbor are unable to thrive on their own talent and ability.
This is the magic of neo-Marxism, the proliferation of victim classes to augment the proletariat of classic Marxism. Thus the dictatorship of the intersectional. A true riot of stupid.
And at the end of the day, heaven forfend, the intersectionals will learn what Trotsky discovered about anti Semitism. Officially, it maybe outlawed, but Stalin was a law unto himself.
The Revolution was never anti-Semitic and cannot be held accountable for the fact the so many Jews turned out to be counterrevolutionaries, comrade. Are you truly part of the revolution yourself? Just asking for a friend. For my report.
Nor is it bound by intent, so even if Columbus hadn’t been an amoral murderous plunderer (and let’s be honest, he really was almost certainly indeed these things) he still would have been racist.
Soviet antisemitism didn’t start with Stalin.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/60315/60315-h/60315-h.htm#Page_194
The reality of it is that those people (all the indigenous in North and South America and the Caribbean) were doomed. They had no immunity to anything that was common in Europe.Once contact was made, and that was inevitable, it was only a matter of time. There may have been a pandemic shortly before Columbus arrived, source of the infection unknown. Ironically, the same thing occurred at about the time of the Mayflower. A pandemic among the natives of the northeast wiped out much of the population giving the pilgrims the space to establish themsleves. They did not bring it, but when they arrived they found numerous abandoned villages and a real dearth of natives.
Strange the twists of fate…
It is my understanding that this is a very plausible theory, but has not been proven.
When the Vikings came, why was therr no pandemic if it was inevitable? Rhetorical question but something I have lobg wondered about.