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Celebrating Columbus Day; What's it really about?

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  • #16
    Re: Happy Indigenous Peoples Day

    So, a common reason Columbus is celebrated is because "he proved the Earth was round." This isn't true. Another reason that he's celebrated its because "he found America". This isn't true. Other celebrate him because he "settled America". This isn't true.

    The first colony was English, even though the Spanish were the first to explore here. Before that, America was settled by, get this, Native Americans. Reinforcing the idea that this land was unsettled before the English founded colonies perpetuates the harm of colonization.

    Columbus wasn't the first to come here, and his people didn't settle here before the English, so really he isn't that different from the Vikings who did the same thing, hundreds of years before. They came, found the Americas, traded with them, sometimes married them, or at least bred with them, and explored this land. That's what the Spanish did. The fact that the English from advantage of this rediscovered knowledge to colonize shouldn't be celebrated.

    And though the Church fought the idea that the earth was round during the dark ages, and it has generally been accepted that people agreed the Earth was flat until the Americas were found, scholars have agreed for more than 2000 years that the earth is round and a planet. They just couldn't be vocal about it because they would have been executed.
    We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now. -Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood

    I wondered if he could ever understand that it was a blessing, not a sin, to be graced with more than one love.
    It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss.
    Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.
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    • #17
      Re: Celebrating Columbus Day; What's it really about?

      I split off most of the posts from the Happy Indigenous People Day thread because a debate was happening in an inappropriate sub forum. This is the new home to continue discussing or debating Columbus, his actions, reasons for (or against) celebrating Columbus Day, etc.
      “Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.”
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      • #18
        Re: Celebrating Columbus Day; What's it really about?

        Well the truth of the matter is that Christopher Columbus is a total jerk. It took me awhile to realized what kind of person he really is. So I heard it from one person at my job saying that he's a racist and a rapist. I was very shock to hear about the horrible truth about him. I'm very disgusted of what that guy did and for now on I'm going to celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day every year.

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        • #19
          Re: Celebrating Columbus Day; What's it really about?

          Originally posted by Bartmanhomer View Post
          .. I'm very disgusted of what that guy did and for now on I'm going to celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day every year.
          Not trying to be an arse or anything here but in all seriousness what exactly are you going to be celebrating? Asking you BMH or anyone else who cares to answer.

          Celebrating Indigenous Peoples of the World? Celebrating Indigenous Peoples of the America's only? Celebrating the Indigenous Peoples of the North American land mass? Celebrating the fact your not celebrating Columbus? Then just what are you doing to celebrate these Indigenous Peoples? Especially given nearly anything that is done which requires you to wear something, eat something, show something, say something, almost acknowledge something people today are screaming "Cultural Appropriation" by doing so. History wise almost nothing is being taught or shown about Indigenous culture's since each Indigenous group had a unique culture for the most part.

          Figure there is no Native American Pantheon of divinities for instance but nearly 600 unique nations with their own histories, religious beliefs, creation stories, etc in North America alone.

          Again not trying to be a smart arse here. I am truly interested in how people are trying to celebrate this and honor / recognize indigenous peoples in their own respective way. Not make it a "It's not a Columbus Day" generic holiday that is supposedly about native peoples from around the world.
          I'm Only Responsible For What I Say Not For What Or How You Understand!

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          • #20
            Re: Celebrating Columbus Day; What's it really about?

            Native Americans who discover America celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day.
            Last edited by Bartmanhomer; 25 Oct 2019, 12:18.

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            • #21
              Re: Celebrating Columbus Day; What's it really about?

              Originally posted by monsno_leedra View Post
              Not trying to be an arse or anything here but in all seriousness what exactly are you going to be celebrating? Asking you BMH or anyone else who cares to answer.

              Celebrating Indigenous Peoples of the World? Celebrating Indigenous Peoples of the America's only? Celebrating the Indigenous Peoples of the North American land mass? Celebrating the fact your not celebrating Columbus? Then just what are you doing to celebrate these Indigenous Peoples? Especially given nearly anything that is done which requires you to wear something, eat something, show something, say something, almost acknowledge something people today are screaming "Cultural Appropriation" by doing so. History wise almost nothing is being taught or shown about Indigenous culture's since each Indigenous group had a unique culture for the most part.

              Figure there is no Native American Pantheon of divinities for instance but nearly 600 unique nations with their own histories, religious beliefs, creation stories, etc in North America alone.

              Again not trying to be a smart arse here. I am truly interested in how people are trying to celebrate this and honor / recognize indigenous peoples in their own respective way. Not make it a "It's not a Columbus Day" generic holiday that is supposedly about native peoples from around the world.
              I work retail. If Indigenous People's Day takes off then it mostly amounts to "The Jack*** population increases because holiday" instead of the "The Jack*** population increases because holiday celebrating particularly evil Jack***". Mind you, that is still an improvement but my interest is almost entirely because Columbus offends me.

              Granted, I am more than a bit jaded about holidays and even the ones that I actually care about still all bottomline at "Jack*** population increases" The only exception is Christmas which bottomlines at "Retail still believes that at least one day should be sacrosanct?!? YES!!!! How long will this last?" Someone less jaded may have a better answer.
              "It is not simply enough to know the light…a Jedi must feel the tension between the two sides of the Force…in himself and in the universe."
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              "When to the Force you truly give yourself, all you do expresses the truth of who you are,"

              Yoda

              Yoda told stories, and ate, and cried, and laughed: and the Padawans saw that life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

              Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

              "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

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              "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

              Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


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              • #22
                Re: Celebrating Columbus Day; What's it really about?

                As children, we are told fairytales of perfect heros acting perfectly heroically.

                Later, we find out these people were human, as are we, and embodied both in the temperament of the times in which they are born, and of the temperament with which they were born, and which allowed them to survive and rise to prominence in that time and place, and we hate them for it.

                Someday we will stop looking for heroes in the past, and look for them in the now.


                P.s I imagine that the holiday is to celebrate... Or maybe to merely acknowledge... all the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, what with "Native Americans" being a collective proper noun used to indicate all the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas.
                Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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                • #23
                  Re: Celebrating Columbus Day; What's it really about?

                  Originally posted by B. de Corbin View Post
                  .. P.s I imagine that the holiday is to celebrate... Or maybe to merely acknowledge... all the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, what with "Native Americans" being a collective proper noun used to indicate all the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas.
                  That's one of the things I'm talking about. A few generations ago it was proper to call the 1st peoples and later "Native American's" and that went up to modern times. Now the argument I'm seeing and hearing more and more often is that is "colonialism" speaking. They aren't Native American's they are Indigenous Peoples.

                  However, realistically everyone is indigenous to the planet and the landmass from which they hail from. Doesn't matter whether they be Asian, European, African, Polynesian, etc. Then it is further broken down by specifics of some sort either by identification within their own peoples or by outside sources. They are still indigenous to the planet and landmass.

                  Take the Dakota, Lakota or Uglala they are still the Sioux to those outside that Nation but were their traditional enemies. Known as Native American's to people who are still less formal who only know them to be American Indian's from North America. No need to go into disrespectful terms we've all heard at one point or another probably.

                  But go onto more modern sites and groups and they want it known as "Indigenous Peoples". Now maybe people don't know the Cherokee are called the "Tsalagi" or the Navajo are called the "Dine" meaning "The People" or "Children of the Holy People" for instance but they never will if it's all lumped under Indigenous Peoples I think.

                  Of course that's just my opinion.
                  Last edited by monsno_leedra; 25 Oct 2019, 14:11.
                  I'm Only Responsible For What I Say Not For What Or How You Understand!

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