The debate over Columbus' historical legacy is an old one, but it became emotionally charged after a similar debate in the South over monuments to Confederate generals flared into deadly violence in August at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. "If they're going to celebrate Columbus, we need to celebrate the fact that we survived Columbus.'' "The conversation is Columbus,'' he said. It's not about taking anything away from Italian-Americans, said Cliff Matias, cultural director of the Redhawk Native American Arts Council. We do no celebrate him because of what he did negatively, we celebrate all the positive things that he did," said Angelo Vivolo of the Columbus Citizens Foundation. "We're very proud of our heritage, we're going to continue to have our voice heard, and we respect all ethnicities. And we're entitled to do that just as they are entitled to celebrate who they are.'' "Columbus Day is a day that we've chosen to celebrate who we are. "We had a very difficult time in this country for well over a hundred years,'' said Basil Russo, president of the Order Italian Sons and Daughters of America. Those are crimes against humanity, and that should not be glorified by way of a special day."īut the gesture to recognize indigenous people rather than the man who opened the Americas to European domination also has prompted howls of outrage from some Italian-Americans, who say eliminating their festival of ethnic pride is culturally insensitive, too. And if he did, you can't discover a place where people already exist." Barron told 1010 WINS. "Murder is not a character flaw, colonization is not a character flaw, enslaving other human beings is not a character flaw. to further explain this concept of abolishing Columbus Day, I fully agree and am personally for this campaign."Columbus was a racist, he was a slave holder, he was a colonist, a murderer of indigenous people and he never stepped foot in America, according to many historians, so he never discovered America. With also having the opportunity to sit down and speak with some representatives with Zinn Ed in Washington, D.C. We encourage schools to petition their administration and for communities to introduce legislation to rename Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day.” The excerpt continues stating, “instead of glorifying a person who enslaved and murdered people, destroyed cultures, and terrorized those who challenged his rule, we seek to honor these communities demanding sovereignty, recognition, and rights. The Zinn Ed Project also has launched an “ Abolish Columbus Day Campaign,” which inscribes “it is time to stop celebrating the crimes of Columbus and stand in solidarity with the Indigenous people who demand an end to Columbus Day.” A year later, Columbus intensified his efforts to enslave Indigenous people in the Caribbean.īigelow continues to write that “from the very beginning, Columbus was not on a mission of discovery but of conquest and exploitation-he called his expedition la empresa, the enterprise…And Columbus deserves to be remembered as the first terrorist in the Americas.” In a 2015 article, Bill Bigelow, co-director of the Zinn Education Project, described Columbus as initiating the trans-Atlantic slave trade in early February 1494, sending several dozen enslaved Africans to Spain. Many people across the country have denounced the Columbus Day holiday and have pushed for a new holiday to take its place: Indigenous Peoples Day. For many across the nation, Columbus is regarded as the Spanish explorer who (for those who don’t know) “ was a famous explorer known for his voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and his establishment of America.” Many primary and secondary education schools still teach this, but yet in 2016, this history lesson is just not true. Some of us may or may have not have heard about Christopher Columbus.
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