What If We Celebrate the Impact of Columbus AND Indigenous People?

 

As with every controversial issue in America, the battle over today has become an exhausting battle between two poles: on one side, those who want to maintain our observance of Columbus Day, and the other, those who want to shift today’s holiday into “Indigenous People’s Day.”

It’s a false choice. Why can’t we celebrate the Discovery of the Americas Day, with all of the assorted implications that discovery wrought? We live the lives we do, and the world is better off, because Europeans landed on our shores. Columbus wasn’t the first to “discover” America, but he opened the door to its colonization.

We spent last year studying that time period, and somehow even my kindergartener managed to read about “Lief the Lucky” and Columbus, in addition to lovely anthologies of Native American folklore, and the story of Squanto. (Most of the books came from this literature-based homeschool curriculum).

There is so much rich history here, and it is all interwoven. We can trust our children (and ourselves) with a nuanced view of history; the Europeans who initially arrived here weren’t wholly bad, nor was our colonization of this land a net-negative. Native Americans were comprised of dozens of tribes, and their cultures and behaviors varied from person to person, region to region. We’re too smart to believe that history can be simplified in the way that our national discourse is trying to reduce it.

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  1. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    At one time I would have agreed, Bethany. But when I see the demands that the Left continues to make, without compromise, I’m not inclined to do it. They would probably see it as our patronizing them, and they would be right. 

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  2. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    Those opposed to Columbus Day, the recognition of Christopher Columbus as a great Italian, and the commemoration of the new era of world history his journey opened are not asking for nuance. They are demanding that we all join them in (more or less ritualised) denunciation of the west and all its works, its ideas and its descendants. Accommodation does not seem like a wise move.

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  3. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Maybe what we should really admit is that neither Columbus or Native Americans have that much baring on our culture. Honestly, what about America can be directly linked to Columbus? Technically Columbus “discovered” Cuba and the island of Hispaniola, and maybe a few other Caribbean island.  As for the indigenous people? Well they at least gave us some place names, but for the most part their cultures and civilizations were plowed under by the behemoth of Western progress and expansion. 

    The fact that one ethnic pander holiday is being replaced by another ethnic pandering holiday is not a big deal, or a great tragedy. It is a social fad, and in another few decades Indigenous people’s day will be replaced by some other equally trite yet timely commemoration. 

     

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  4. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    I think you’re right, Bethany, it’s important to show the complexities and ambiguities…develop some empathy for, say, starving immigrants from Ireland as well as for Native Americans they displaced.

     

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  5. Suspira Member
    Suspira
    @Suspira

    Bethany Mandel: We’re too smart to believe that history can be simplified in the way that our national discourse is trying to reduce it.

    I agree with everything you say, except possibly this “outro.” I’d like to agree with it, too, but I’m having a hard time swimming against a strong current of stupidity I see daily.

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  6. No Caesar Thatcher
    No Caesar
    @NoCaesar

    I wish we could do this.  Once upon a time we could and did.  Unfortunately, that is why we are in this place now.  The Left has taken every fair, open-minded, reasonable position, pocketed it and kept pushing Leftward.  They have to be told no.  Every time we compromise with them they’ve just moved the Overton window to the Left.  No more.

    The history of the peopling of the Western Hemisphere is a fascinating multiple millennia-long drama of pathos, kindness, heroism, treachery, comedy and tragedy (i.e. a human story).  The colonization acts by pre-Columbian waves of humans left significant effects on the landscape and those who came before them.   However, the central ethos of Multi-Culturalism and all the other ” ‘isms” of the Left is that those of Western European blood (and their culture) are uniquely bad and evil.  They say we are the root of all problems in the world, and will never rest until we are extirpated from history.  There is no compromise with them.  They must be thoroughly discredited, or they will destroy us.  I will not compromise until they stand down.  I no longer care whether they have any justifiable complaints.  I’m not interested in compromise until they admit they’re wrong.  Then I’m prepared to listen.

    Obviously, this is not a position for a low-intensity resolution of conflict.  But we are at this point because we kept being reasonable and nice.  I’m not willing to be either any more.  My response to all their demands is #GolfFoxtrotYankee.

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  7. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    What you’re implying Bethany is that you’re ashamed of Columbus but still want to celebrate the day. No, I celebrate Christopher Columbus the man, for the decent man he was and for his courage and daring it took to discover the new world. I am not ashamed of Christopher Columbus. Don’t believe that liberal garbage and find out the true facts about the man. 

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  8. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    David Marcus of The Federalist writing for the New York Post had this to say in his article “Say It Loud and Proud: Happy Columbus Day.”

    The upshot of Columbus’ grit and courage is nothing short of the world we inhabit today, one in which Judeo-Christian values through centuries of churn and violence have led to the freest, most equitable and most prosperous nations in our planet’s history. There are those who say that Columbus didn’t live with our modern values. That is true, but it is also true that without Columbus, our modern values might very well not exist.

    Read the entire article.  Also look about and you will find articles that Columbus had no intention of conquest or subjugating native Americans.  He had the utmost respect for them and in some ways considered them our betters.  The repudiation of Christopher Columbus is first based on political correct spin of the most egregious distortion and second designed to undermine western civilization at its core.  Don’t say it mealy mouth.  Say it with the importance that it deserves.  Columbus’ discovery led to the height of western civilization.  It should be said with pride.

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