Transforming Columbus Day

[bobbolink]

Did you know Columbus Day observances began in Colorado?

CHALLENGE THE ROOTS OF RACISM IN AMERICA
*Columbus is responsible for the murder of millions of indigenous people.

*Columbus was a slavetrader in Africa before invading America. He began the slave trade in the Americas. He deserves no holiday, no parades, no statues.

*Columbus Day celebrates the doctrine of discovery – the legal process that stole Indian people's territories, and that continues today.

*Columbus brought a philosophy of domination to the Americas that persists today – domination of other peoples, domination of the environment, domination of other belief systems, domination of women by men.
http://www.transformcolumbusday.org/

From DemocracyNOW!, an interview with an AIM activist, and an Italian-American who are both working to Transform Columbus Day. Its an enlightening interview, and well worth listening or reading.

Challenging Columbus Day: Denver Organizers Discuss Why They Protest the Holiday
Monday is known as Columbus Day, which is supposed to commemorate the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the so-called "new world" in 1492. But the holiday has long caused anger amongst people of color, especially Native Americans, who object to honoring a man who opened the door to European colonization, the exploitation of native peoples and the slave trade. We talk to Glenn Morris of the American Indian Movement of Colorado and Glenn Spagnuolo of Progressive Italians Transforming the Columbus Day Holiday.

The first state commemoration of Columbus Day was in Colorado and when our "Breaking the Sound Barrier" tour visited the state earlier this month–I sat down with two activists who were working to transform the holiday. Glenn Morris is a member of the Leadership Council of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, an Attorney and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado at Denver. Glenn Spagnuolo is a member of Transform Columbus Day Alliance and the Director of PITCH–Progressive Italians Transforming the Columbus Day Holiday.

GLENN MORRIS: Columbus Day began—most people don’t know—as a state holiday in Colorado in 1907. But what’s more important for people to understand is the ideology behind Columbus Day and why there is a Columbus Day in the United States or in Colorado. And there’s been a lot of discussion lately about Hugo Chavez at the United Nations, when he raised up Noam Chomsky’s book, Hegemony or Survival.

GLENN SPAGNUOLO: Well, it actually started down in Pueblo, if I’m correct, and when it got started—it’s really changed from the beginning to what it is now. Now, you have Italians who have latched onto this holiday, saying that this is a celebration of their Italian pride and a celebration of Christian ethics. And the more I looked at it, the more I learned that that’s not really the truth. This is just propaganda, used as tool to support the white privilege that they get from the oppression of Native Americans and the colonization of America. Back in Italy, where my family came from, Columbus isn’t celebrated as a national hero. In Genoa, at the quincentennial, they actually tried to shut down the city, so a celebration wouldn’t occur there for tourists.
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/10/6/challenging_columbus_day_denver_organizers_discuss

Why Transform Columbus Day?

The Transform Columbus Day Alliance actively rejects the celebration of Christopher Columbus and his legacy of domination, oppression, and colonialism. We also reject historical misconceptions regarding Columbus and his "discovery" of the Americas.

By saying NO to Columbus and his day we are saying YES to a new future of mutual respect, collaboration, and equality,

a future that respects...

=the rights of indigenous peoples
=the natural environment
=democratic & economic justice
=gender equity over global patriarchy
=free and equal speech over hate speech
http://www.transformcolumbusday.org/

[KamaAina]

1. For years Hawai'i called it "Discoverers' Day"

since Columbus doesn't really resonate out there.

A few years ago they dropped the holiday altogether.

[bobbolink]

5. The "Discoverers" were the incredible voyagers who navigated the world's largest ocean

by the stars!

Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono!

[KamaAina]

7. E ola mau ka 'olelo Hawai'i!

:thumbsup:

[lightningandsnow]

2. I'm really glad you posted this.

The issues of indigenous people don't get as much airtime on DU as they should.

[bobbolink]

8. First Nation people and poor people are pretty much ignored by "liberals" altogether.

:(

Thank you for caring... it means a lot!

I have often participated in the Four Directions March, and it is one of the most uplifting things I have ever been involved in.

[lightningandsnow]

11. I went to the Sisters in Spirit vigil and march this year.

It's for the missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada...it was so sad, but inspirational in a way as well. I only wish there were more people there! Especially since a homeless aboriginal woman (Carolyn Connolly) was murdered about a year and a half ago in downtown Toronto, and it got almost no media coverage. :(

[bobbolink]

12. Could you please post an OP about that?

That is very important, and we need to know more.

Thanks! :yourock:

[nashville_brook]

3. this is a remembrance that really needs revamping. Columbus was looking for slaves.

do we really want to celebrate that?

i like this part of the interview:

GLENN MORRIS: Well, Columbus sailed for the Portuguese on the Gold Coast of Africa, brought back gold and slaves to the Portuguese slave market in Portugal. That’s why when he arrived in the Caribbean, it became so easy for him to resort to his old practices and began to enslave Indian people to bring to the slave market in Seville. And so, we believe that Columbus as a national icon is a mistake and sends certainly the wrong message to schoolchildren about what is heroic about the history of this hemisphere. Certainly, the heroism of Columbus does not warrant a national holiday. In fact, he wasn’t a hero. He was a slave-trading Indian killer. And so, that’s why, in the birthplace of Columbus Day here in Denver, it’s such a big issue. Next year will be the centennial of the holiday. And we intend to make that a major focal point nationally.

[bobbolink]

17. We anglos need to join with the Indians to protest this whole mess!

Of course, there is an unofficial slavery in the US which also needs attention.....:(

These are the two Original Sins of the United States... Genocide of the indigenous people, and slavery of the African people.

Until we, as a nation, come to terms with those sins, we are destined to continue being an ugly nation.

[jaksavage]

4. Columbus was lost

Native americans found him.

[bobbolink]

32. Sometimes their generousity is mistaken.

:hi:

[Desertrose]

6. Poppy Bush had 40% of Native Am women sterilized in the 70's...

A short video but the truth comes out....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNsAK7jS0WY



Another one -"Columbus Day Sanitized"from 500th anniversary in 1992 on the Today show . Listen to the very end how easily they dismiss what the Cherokee has to say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRED_7pAAaI


Clip from "The Canary Effect"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wm0EvTk8o4&feature=related


IMHO, Columbus Day shouldn't be transformed - it should be abolished.

[bobbolink]

10. The Indians are very generous and forgiving people. They would HELP the Italians

transform the observance into a celebration of their own culture.

Here are the words of an Italian American who has worked with the Indians on this:

GLENN SPAGNUOLO: Well, obviously they have been very negative, made responses to us in the sense that, you know, we’re race traitors and that we don’t respect the Italian culture. But most of them have been here for generations and have actually lost touch with their own Italian culture. People from immigrant families who haven’t been here that long recognize their true Italian roots and realize that this is not a celebration of it. If they wanted to have a celebration of Italian pride, I would be the first one to help them organize it, and I’m sure that the American Indian Movement would assist in that, too, because they have nothing against anybody celebrating their own cultural values.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, bobbolink.

[asdjrocky]

13. Like I always say on this day....

Fuck Columbus!

[bobbolink]

16. Ugh. That is a disgusting thought.

REally, I would much rather turn the tables on him and let him, in the afterlife, suffer the same fate he foisted on so many others.

But fuck him?

thanks, but no thanks... :rofl:

[asdjrocky]

20. What would we do without a good sense of humor!

Thanks for making me laugh Bobbo! :hi:

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. KnR

[maryf]

15. Thanks bobbie!!

Great OP, a pox on Columbus Day (and put it in a blanket)...K&R of course

[w8liftinglady]

18. Any holiday that celebrates this type of assault on Native Americans is reprehensible

I am Italian-American and would have nothing but disgust for all that Columbus displayed.
The fact that it is a FEDERAL holiday is especially bad.

[superduperfarleft]

19. Americans, just like all people, need their myths. n/t

[bobbolink]

21. Thank you! Have you considered joining that organization of Italians who are against Columbus Day?

I'm sure your support would be welcome!

I very much appreciate your integrity and sensitivity! :yourock:

[bobbolink]

22. Psychological Aspects of Racism

Let me suggest to you, as one example, that racism is a far more serious, pathological, and deep-seated emotional problem in our society than either the sexual neuroses of latter-day Victorians or the existential neuroses of the affluent. Racists do share some of the pathological symptoms we encounter in the clinic. The racist is delusional. He believes things to be true that are not true because such beliefs serve deep unconscious emotional needs, and his belief is unshakable by reason or logic. How much individual case-study have clinical psychologists done with the individual racist, and where have we studied the epidemiology of racism? Unless our society solves the problems of racism, we are not going to survive as a nation. Does this mental condition not merit our attention? Have we tried to do anything in the way of meaningful intervention with the racists? The mental health field has been enchanted in recent years with the development of store-front intervention centers in the slums where local indigenous workers, knowing the language and culture, have been effective in working with the people of these depressed neighborhoods. But why has clinical psychology not opened its own store-front intervention centers in suburbia, staffed by psychologists who speak the language and understand the white suburban affluent culture, to intervene with the local inhabitants afflicted with racism and other virulent forms of prejudice? Why are we so much less threatened by the neuroses of sex than we are by the neuroses of hate? Perhaps, because psychiatry has had little interest in the pathology of aggression, neither have we.

Similarly, clinical psychology has paid almost no attention to the damaging emotional consequences of discrimination based on sex, and yet sexism, like racism, is almost entirely a psychological process, especially a learning process.

I would suggest as a further example that certain economic philosophies that are prevalent in our society are also exceptionally dangerous to others. An economic philosophy that justifies the maximization of profit at the expense of the safety, health, and happiness of the citizen should be as much a concern of the mental health worker, particularly the clinical and community psychologist, as more traditional forms of neurosis. In the last few years, I have been driven to conclude that an affluent white Protestant elite, which controls most of our major corporations and our banking system, and indirectly much of our government at all levels, engages in a mammoth, self-seeking, power- and profit-motivated enterprise which results in inequitable distribution of jobs, resources, and health care, and affects even such fundamentals as life expectancy. The most visible victims are the urban black people, but I would hasten to point out that there arc millions of poverty-stricken whites in Appalachia and elsewhere who, together with the American Indians and the Mexican-Americans, arc also victimized by the economic system. Women are also victimized and exploited by our system. If professional psychologists were truly concerned with human welfare, we could forget "psychiatric patients" for a century and turn our attention to the psychological causes of racism, sexism, and of the profit motive as sources of danger to the human- centered life.

Surely, the cynical manipulation of the masses by powerful elites is a subject worthy of psychological investigation. Which groups are most "dangerous to others"? Our society locks up overt paranoids. But it pays honor and respect to the industrialist who builds automobiles that are death traps, who sprays our fruit with coal tar poisons, and who shows utter disregard for public good in a simple- minded search for profits and power. Why have clinical psychologists not been concerned with the motivations of the manipulators? When the Congress refuses to include farm workers under mini- mum wage and health-legislation, it dooms hundreds of thousands of children and adults to lives of hopeless poverty and disease. When giant chemical companies dump deadly poisons into our streams and lakes, psychology should be involved in apply- ing its knowledge to prevention of such destruction.
Albee, G.W. (1970). The uncertain future of clinical psychology. American Psychologist, 25, 12, 1071-1080.

[Panaconda]

23. What a superb antidote

to the whitewash of history.

To celebrate this holiday or to be silent as it is celebrated is to be complicit.

From what I've seen here many folks simply don't want to talk about it and don't even want to have it brought up in their company. That is disturbing.

So it makes them feel 'uncomfortable' and well it should.

K&R

[bobbolink]

24. Uncomfortable? Yes, indeed. The unreccers are out in force.

It is truly sad that Democrats can't see in themselves the same traits of denial that they so abhor in Repubs. :(

Thank you for your great thread, and thanks for reading this one! :yourock:

[blindpig]

28. Yeah..

rename it 'American Genocide Day', though of course that only scratches the surface.

[bobbolink]

29. You know, that could be a workable idea.

A real counter-holiday, but it would have to be done by us anglos.... Indians doing that would face waaaay too much retribution.

Besides, Indians are quite a generous people.

Can you come up with a graphic for that?

[blindpig]

31. Well, I ain't no artist but I can google...

It's a start.....

[bobbolink]

33. That's great... haven't seen that one before.

Sent it on to some Indian friends of mine.... they need cheering on an ugly day like this.

Thanks! :yourock:

[Panaconda]

66. Excellent

:toast:

[maryf]

68. Fantastic...

thanks!

[Dappleganger]

25. There's absolutely zero reasons for Columbus Day...

I'd rather see a National Pie Day, where we shut down all businesses and stay home and bake pies for each other. ;)

[Tsiyu]

30. National Pie Day

Now, that is a great idea...

Any Lime Pie for a crowd:

Large Graham Cracker crust
6 egg yolks
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
1 cup lime juice


mix yolks, milk and lime juice with a whisk til smooth and homogenous color

pour into pie shell

bake at 325 for 20 minutes


Chill, top with sour cream mixed with a bit of powdered sugar to taste.




Voila! Pie!

Any Italian should be awright with pie :D

[Dappleganger]

46. Yummy!

I am so going to try it out this weekend!

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

39. Pie contributes to obesity in this country

I find your suggestion socially irresponsible and borderline insensitive.

[Dappleganger]

45. Please tell me

that you left off the /s in your post.

:eyes:

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

50. I expected as much from a pie pushing fascist such as yourself

Always looking for the sarcasm to attempt to marginalize those of us who reject the pietriarchy and it's efforts to fatten up America.

[Dappleganger]

55. Ha!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


PS: read the new tagline. *snort*

[Regret My New Name]

73. I like you.

[Liberal_in_LA]

26. K&R

[bobbolink]

40. Thanks!

[Brewman_Jax]

27. K&R

:kick:

[Swamp Rat]

34. k&r

[bobbolink]

38. .

:hi:

[Odin2005]

35. K&R

[Nambe]

36. My AIM story in short

I forget the dates as I was homeless for a short time after prison and left the country soon after. I immigrated to Australia in 1970 and returned to the US for a working holiday in 1973. My partner and I were working on the Warm Springs reservation in Oregon and rented a historic ranch house just off the reservation. We became friends with some of the "Grandmothers" on the Counsel of Elders. I am told the four AIM refugees from the Federal trials resulting from the Wounded Knee trials were arrested in Ontario Oregon for weapons and explosive charges (the evidence was never produced). They requested refuge on the Warm Springs Reservation but were denied by the Tribal Counsel which over ruled the acceptance by the Counsel of Elders. One of the Grandmothers asked us if we would let some of her friends stay in our house for two weeks. In return, we could accompany the Grandmothers on a Pow Wow tour. Unfortunately for us, our guests arrived a day early and we met them in front of our house as we were leaving.
Years later, I was arrested in Oregon for custodial interference in a case which involved child molestation of my son. I was asked to testify that I observed guns and explosives in the car of the four nice Native Americans we had met years before. They had numerous "8 x 10 glossies" of our meeting them in our parking lot. They were asking me to lie in a re-trial of Dennis Banks. When I refused, I was sentenced to 5 years in prison for a crime that had a maximum sentence of 90 days two months later. The evidence of child molestation was disallowed by the court. Even though I was given protection in prison by an unknown source, this was a major, dark cloud in my life. I will go to my grave believing the Native Americans were one of a handful of human cultures on the right path before one of, if not the largest, genocides that began with the arrival of Columbus.
I know the Great Spirit of all things will honor them, as we should have, beyond this difficult existence.
My love and love's peace to all living things. (especially the rocks!)

[bobbolink]

37. What an amazing story! I have said several times today, the generosity of Indians is amazing.

I am inspired by their spirit, but I lack their forebearance. It comes from their spirituality.

You went through some real hell, and I hope you are doing better now.

:hi:

[Green_Lantern]

41. the funny thing about some progressives protesting Columbus day..

Is that at one time it was a progressive celebration symbolic of Italian immigration to America.

But now it's protested as some "racist" holiday.

Yeah before Europeans came here Native Americans lived in peace and tranquility right?

Whenever any holiday comes up I can expect to come on DU and see it shit on.

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. Invading a land and killing its people isn't racist?

Learn something new every day.

[bobbolink]

44. Ya gotta wonder what boat *this* invasion came in on.

:hi:

[Green_Lantern]

47. so Thanksgiving is racist? 4th of July?racist..

Everything is racist....if you consider these wouldn't even exist if Europeans hadn't come here.

We'd need to live life in constant guilt.

[proud2BlibKansan]

48. I could recommend a history tutor if you need one.

LOL

[Green_Lantern]

54. wow how original....

Do you live on land voluntarily given up by Native Americans?

You aren't talking history, you're putting history through the lens of political subjectivism.

[bobbolink]

43. Did you bother to read the OP?

Or do you just come here to dump your unhappiness on others?

Have a joyous holiday.

Its only human lives.

[Green_Lantern]

51. 400 years? I think we can stop mourning..

Natives killed each other all the time.

[bobbolink]

56. Thank you for your sensitivity.

If you are representative, the Democratic party has totally imploded.

OTOH, maybe *you* like to cause fights? Could that possibly be it?

Thankfully, there are still a lot of caring people here, and I will concentrate on them.

[Green_Lantern]

57. I'm certainly caring about people currently living

And I'm not sure how it serves the Democratic party to be the party who shits on American holidays.

How does protesting Columbus Day help people whose jobs are being outsourced? Democrats should be worried about the latter.

[bobbolink]

59. Its that kind of short-sightedness and hard-heartedness that is causing the Dems to lose

in the polls.

Congratulations on helping the downward trend.

[Green_Lantern]

60. that doesn't make sense....

Being more concerned about people losing their jobs than protesting a holiday is hurting Dems at the polls? Huh?

[bobbolink]

62. I wouldn't expect you to understand. That would take more heart.

However, I do appreciate you keeping the thread kicked, so more people who are unhappy with Columbus day see the information, and can connect with the links given.

[Nambe]

49. Celebrating the "discovery" of America?

I am not "from" DU and fortunately, most of the people "from" DU are intelligent sensitive people. From all accounts, Columbus was a brutal alcoholic lost in many ways. The true history of Native American civilizations was brutally and systematically destroyed. What is left is mostly guesswork by modern anthropologists. If you don't like it here.....

[Green_Lantern]

52. yes and Native Americans killed, warred, and invaded each other

All of the time. Human history is a bitch, ask the animal population.

Do you live on the only land Natives gave up voluntarily?

[ThomCat]

76. That doesn't change the fact that Columbus came here

and enslaved large numbers of people with such brutality that women were murdering their own children to keep them away from Columbus and his men. Nobody else was ever so brutal that people would be that desperate to get away and keep their children from falling into his hands.

Columbus severed people's hands, had them chopped off for the crime of not finding and delivering enough gold every single month as tribute. Columbus slaughtered huge numbers of people in shows of force, and anyone who tried to get away, and anyone who could no longer produce the required gold or work as a slave. Nobody else had ever been that brutal and destroyed so many people so casually.

Millions more people died as a result of diseases he and his men brought over. The estimate I saw said up to 90% of the population of continent died from disease before it was all done because of him.

That isn't something you just gloss over as no big deal. That isn't just the same old history repeating itself. That is all history that we need to know, and stop celebrating.

You don't celebrate barbarity and torture and death. You don't celebrate the person who brought mass slavery and mass destruction and mass greed. You don't celebrate the person who brought pestilence that nearly wiped out a continent!

[bobbolink]

53. You're definitely right about the guesswork.

Anthropology is full of all kinds of mistaken assumptions and wrong tactics.

And further than that, "history" is what is told by those in power. The story from those being oppressed is much different, but it usually isn't heard.

A simple beginning would be for many here to read "Lies My Teacher Told Me". When I suggested my library book group read it, the comments after that meeting were a lot of people saying "I will never look at Thanksgiving the same way again", and "Now I really understand why Native Americans object to Columbus Day as a holiday."

But the ostrich effect is alive and well at DU.

[Greyhound]

70. Relative to the slaughter practiced by Europeans all over the world, yes.

He was also a pioneer in the sex-slave trade and used mutilation (primarily cutting off girl's noses and ears) as an initial punishment for disobedience and escalating punishment to skewering them "from anus to mouth" and then roasting them over an open fire to demonstrate his power, as any good servant of God would. 8 to 10 year-old girls were the most popular, so he had to take them at around age 6.

Yep, just the kind of guy we should all emulate in the hopes of achieving as much...
:eyes:

[G_j]

58. excellent post

why do we have a holiday honoring a mass murderer, rapist and trafficker of sex slaves?

[bobbolink]

61. Well, if you read some of these DUers replies, you will find out that he really was a hero,

and besides, it was so long ago, it simply doesn't matter anymore.

See how simple it is? Matter solved.

Sometimes DU is indigestion-inducing.

[Tsiyu]

63. Simple minded ones

who cannot for the life of them put themselves in someone else's shoes or moccasins or bare feet.

Never occurs to them to think about anyone's reality but their own.

Another kick...:kick:

[bobbolink]

64. it reall is sad to see the level of sociopathology...

Talk about a dime's worth....:cry:

Thanks, Tsiyu. :yourock:

[Tsiyu]

67. Hey, they got theirs

that's all that matters to them. Small worlds, small minds...it does get old.




And a :headbang: for you, dear bobbolink

[G_j]

65. I'm convinced there are a number

who would defend ANYTHING.

[TheBigotBasher]

69. To me

Americans celebrating Columbus would be like the Irish celebrating Cromwell.

[G_j]

71. kick

[chillspike]

72. Video of the talk here:

http://www.archive.org/details/dn2006-1006_vid

Starts at about mid-point of video.

[Dinger]

74. Thank You

A Native American friend of mine has a bumper sticker that says "The Indians Discovered columbus".
The school I teach in has a Native student population of about 50% (Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican, People Of The Waters That Are Never Still).
I love my job every day. It is an honor.

[Forkboy]

75. K&R

Interesting thread, great OP.