Goodbye, Columbus: Seattle Commission wants name stricken from holiday

[The Blue Flower]

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/08/29/goodbye-columbus-human-rights-commission-wants-name-stricken/

The Seattle Human Rights commission is doubling down on its efforts to purge Columbus Day from its list of city celebrations and have it replaced in the Emerald City with "Indigenous Peoples Day."

[rsmith6621]

1. Frankly I Do Not Approve.

...This is just stupid. This has been celebrated in current language for almost 100 years here in the USA and longer worldwide.

Leave it alone.

[LiberalAndProud]

4. Worldwide? I don't think.

Latin America, Caribbean and here. Conquered territories, as it were.

We've always done it this way is never the right answer.

[LittleGirl]

8. I applaud their decision

Read the first chapter of Howard Zinn's book The Peoples History of the United States and then maybe you might see another perspective. I'll never celebrate the holiday again and I'm ITALIAN. He was a murderous thief.

[cstanleytech]

9. "He was a murderous thief." True but he also provided a major discovery for

Europe as at the time it was a largely held belief that they could just sail straight across to India as they didnt know about the North American continent.
So I shall continue to celebrate Columbus Day but for that discovery as thats worth celebrating imo.

[NEOBuckeye]

12. Eurocentric Viewpoint

Interesting that it is presented as the Europeans "discovering" what was there all along. Like it wasn't there and didn't matter until they "found" it.

[cstanleytech]

13. " Eurocentric Viewpoint" Nope. A discovery of knowledge one.

And for Europe it was a discovery in that they didnt know that there was even another continent.

[nilram]

17. "Major discovery for Europe"

"For Europe." How can you not call that Eurocentric? Color me confused.

[cstanleytech]

35. Because it also was later shared with the rest of the world nil, doh.

[chrisa]

22. Columbus actually didn't discover North America - he never landed there.

He landed in the Caribbean Islands and enslaved / tortured the population there. He didn't think the land itself was a significant discovery.

In fact, Columbus thought he landed in Asia. He died thinking this. Columbus Day was started to honor Italian-Americans.

[Chan790]

31. My ruddy brownish ancestors would contest that.

They (Cree and Pequot) were already well aware the Americas were here. They were also pretty well aware that Europe was there too since the Vikings had invaded NE North America several times...nothing good ever came to this part of the world from that part of the world as far as they were concerned. The Asian peoples seemingly were fairly well aware that the Americas were here too...there's some record to that effect in Japanese and Chinese histories though they deemed it not worthy of their attentions or exploration. Indigenous Inuits and Aleuts lived on both sides of the Bering Gap, those in Russia certainly would have been aware. There's some evidence of limited coastal traverse between Africa and S. America too. So it's worth questioning...if everybody but you knows something, is that really that big of an accomplishment to discover? Or is it a sign of previous ignorance?

It's seemingly more damning that everybody else knew the Americas were here and managed to not ravage and destroy them...and it took Europeans less than 2 centuries to utterly overrun them. There's nothing worth celebrating about the genocide and near-extinction of an entire ethnicity of people.

[cstanleytech]

36. Did they know at that time of China? I doubt it.

Those discoveries by Columbus helped lead to even more.

[Chan790]

45. Did Europeans in the 1400s know of China?

Really?! Yes, they very much did and had been trading with the Chinese for hundreds of years at that point. The Romans had even had embassies in China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo

[cstanleytech]

55. Yes, I know but did the Cree who you refered to know? I doubt it.

[Chan790]

56. Probably not.

Not in any specific sense. No more so than Zulu were aware of Aborigines...but in the general sense, the Cree were aware of the existence of the populated Eurasian land-mass, if not the size of it or the totality of its inhabitants.

[Moonwalk]

57. So, are you saying Columbus day should be celebrated because it gave indigenous people...

...knowledge of other lands?

[cstanleytech]

61. No, rather it should be celebrated for encouraging exploration which

leads to us learning more about the world we all live on and our universe.

[Lancero]

62. Then why not call it Exploration Day?

[cstanleytech]

63. Fine by me. nt

[Moonwalk]

66. The problem is that what exploration really led to was the wholesale slaughter....

...of native peoples through violence, exploitation, slavery and foreign diseases, not to mention wholesale environmental destruction that we're still paying for to this day, including European injection of plants and animals into landscapes that couldn't support them, to the detriment of the native, evolutionary balance.

You should check out the David Igler's podcast: "Beyond the Wild West: Violence and Death in the Pacific Ocean" in the History Section of iTune-U. It's one of the "California and the West" lectures put out by the Huntington Library. The number of native peoples genocidally wiped out thanks to European exploration is staggering and sickening, and I, myself, am hard pressed to justify it even in the name of "learning more about our world."

I mean, I'm all for scientific and cultural exploration, especially if done by naturalists who are respectful of the environment and native peoples they're studying, but the percentage of that compared to some five-hundred years of ignorant, arrogant, narcissistic and bigoted exploration for riches, greed and power is so minuscule as to make the idea that "exploration leads us to learn more about the world..." a laughable statement at best. It's sad that should be true, but it is. Hence, I find nothing laudable in Columbus' voyage leading to more exploration. It only brought out the worst in humanity, to the detriment not only of whole tribes and cultures of other humans, but the extinction of so many valuable environments and creatures.

[cstanleytech]

67. No, what led to that was greed, ignorance and general assholery. nt

[RadicalGeek]

30. Some Have Suggested

That the day be used to celebrate Italian-Americans in general!

[mr blur]

11. Not worldwide. (nt)

[PeoViejo]

19. For nearly a hundred Years, this Country honored a Genocidal Maniac

This Country was wrong. The least we can do is make his name disappear and honor his victims, of which there were many.

[klyon]

53. long over do

nothing to celebrate here
learn from yes

[greytdemocrat]

64. Agree, Leave it.

Some people just have too much free time.

[rhett o rick]

71. Just because it's been done for a long time is not justification to continue.

"100 years" is a long time to ignore "indigenous peoples" around the world. We have to start somewhere.

[WinkyDink]

2. Yes, well, then the date makes no sense.

[merrily]

29. There is no specific date for celebrating the arrival of First Nations on the North American

continent. So any date would be arbitrary.

[rhett o rick]

72. Why doesn't it "make sense". Celebrating the birth of Jesus on Dec. 25, now that doesn't make sense

[tritsofme]

3. Silly season.

[Nye Bevan]

5. Simply rename it "Columbus was an Imperialist Genocidal Maniac Day"

or "Columbus Day" for short.

[packman]

6. And what does Columbus , Ohio

have to say about this and all the other places?

British Columbia Canadian Province.
Colombia and the earlier Greater Colombia, country of South America.
Colombo, former capital of Sri Lanka (altered by the Portuguese from similar-sounding native name)
Colin, Panama, city
Colón (Panamanian province)
Columbia, Maryland, census-designated place
Columbia, Missouri, city
Columbia, South Carolina, city
Colombo (Brazilian municipality and city in the state of Parana, Brazil)
Columbus, Georgia, city
Columbus, Indiana, city
Columbus, Mississippi, city
Columbus, Nebraska, city
Columbus, Texas, city
Columbus, Wisconsin, city
Columbus, Montana
Columbus, Ohio
District of Columbia
Colombian County, Ohio
Colombian, Ohio, city
Columbia County, Pennsylvania
Columbus Circle, New York City
Colon Street, Cebu, Philippines
Columbine High School

I remember how PC we all were in 1992 and how we tip-toed around the 500th year celebration.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. It's not about the name, it's about a particular man with that name honored with a holiday. nt

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. Let's not forget the Columbia river

Which runs through British Columbia then Washington State which Seattle is part of.

[nilram]

20. We'll work on those.

We can start with District of Indigenous Peoples and Societies (aka Washington, DIPS)

[Chan790]

34. Columbine is named after a flower.

The name of the flower has nothing to do with Columbus either, its name is derived from the Latin name for "doves": Columba, which the flowers resemble.

[Nye Bevan]

47. Also, is it appropriate to name our nation's capital after a guy who owned hundreds of slaves?

"Adams, DC" anyone?

[Moonwalk]

60. There's not much we can do about places outside of the U.S.A., but why not change names...

...if they're based on Christopher Columbus rather than the flower, that is? "Istanbul was once Constantinople..." as the song goes. People change place names all the time. Including the U.S. which changed "New Amsterdam" to "New York" and any number of Native American place names to ones they thought more fitting. Would it really be that horrible to change some of these places BACK to what they originally were called by the natives?

Even the post office mail is based on zip code and numbers rather than names, so it wouldn't really reek that much havoc.

[geomon666]

14. Fuck Christopher Columbus

Whoever decides to celebrate such a rotten person either doesn't know the facts or doesn't give a shit. Personally, I don't know which is worse.

[Tikki]

15. Excellent..I hope it catches on...

Some regions in Canada and much of Australia celebrate their original peoples.


Tikki

[ChazII]

16. Celebrating Columbus Day?

My school district quit having the day off back in the early 90's. Business and gov't also work on Oct. 12.

[angrychair]

18. surprised

And a little shocked, at the passionate defense of a mass murdering dictator that, by some Spainish historical accounts, facilitated in the deaths of millions in Hispaniola alone, who never publicly stated he had discovered a new land but the coasts of India and Asia. The pop culture adulation of him fails to acknowledge the real and terrible impact of his life.

[tea and oranges]

21. Seattle's my kind of town

and hey, I live here & applaud any step, however small, to refrain from celebrating the original American Exceptionalist.

Dare I say it? Sure I do: White Privilege.

If it doesn't make a difference to your white ass, didja ever think it just might to someone who doesn't have a white ass?

[Tree-Hugger]

58. +1 for that last sentence. :) nt

[ismnotwasm]

23. Good

I hope we do it. America so loves it's personal mythogy, that it doesn't bother to learn history.

[LittleBlue]

24. I love Columbus Day

It gives us one day every year to discuss the atrocities of Columbus and his crew.

Read Rivers of Gold by Hugh Thomas.

[merrily]

28. Celebrating the birthday of a murder, maybe a genocidal one, make no sense, no

matter what we discuss. It's like celebrating Hitler's birthday. (Anyone desiring to make a Godwin's law comment, resist that desire.)

[Comrade Grumpy]

25. Columbus' voyages were a world historical event. They brought globalization's first round.

For better or worse. The "discovery" of the Americas was a big deal.

[merrily]

27. It was "discovered" by First Nations, Amerigo Vespucci and the Vikings, too.

But, Columbus's discovery seems to be the one that made the impression on Europe.

[Comrade Grumpy]

40. Columbus's "discovery" was the one that made an impression on the world.

The indigenous people of the Americas were unaware of the existence of the rest of the world.

The Viking effort died in its infancy.

It was Columbus's voyages that led to the opening of the Americas and a truly global economy. For better or worse.

Those voyages were of transcendent world historical importance. They should be commemorated. Somehow.

[merrily]

74. Isn't that what I said? That Columbus's voyage/report was the one that

made the impression? He did not discover North America at all, though. Nor did he discover any of the Americas. First Nations did.

And I don't think his birthday is something we should celebrate. He was genocidal.

[earthside]

43. It was a big deal, indeed, and would have inevitably occurred.

This anti-Columbus Day dust-up is the kind of 'political correctness' that does real damage to the over all liberal and progressive agenda ... it causes a backlash against other important causes.

Ninety percent of Americans in both continents know what Columbus Day/Día de la Raza is all about: commemorating the arrival of Europeans in the New World ... not much more or less than that.

The focus on the person of Columbus as the monster misses the bigger point, anyway ... a point that most of the anti-Columbus proponents don't like -- the imperialism of the Roman Catholic Church via the governments of Spain and Portugal which legitimized most of the genocidal slaughter that followed.

But lots of the descendants of Spanish, Portuguese and aboriginal Americans are now at least nominally Roman Catholics, making it complicated to be attacking their cultural history. So, the boogeyman of Christopher Columbus as the embodiment of evil makes the case more politically palatable.

Besides, the arrival of Europeans to the North and South American continents would have happened around the time of Columbus's arrival just because of the advance of European technology. The diseases they brought would have come no matter what, for instance. I just find it odd how some folks want to create an alternative history that would have been full of rainbows and lemon drops and use that to make judgements about actual history.

October 12, 1492, and the expedition of Columbus changed the world, for better and worse; it still a day of tremendous significance in human history thus far worth remembering and commemorating.

[merrily]

26. I like it. Someone beheaded the statue of Columbus in a waterfront park in Boston a few

years ago. I didn't like that, though.

(The park is in what was an almost all Italian neighborhood for about 75 years. Now it is about 37% Italian, with students and yuppies making up the rest.)

[Laughing Mirror]

32. Good idea for a city named after a Native American chief

Chief Seattle

[JEB]

33. Native people discover Columbus

and his crew spread venereal disease. If we honor Columbus, why not Custer? Why not Wounded Knee day? Columbus day advertises the ignorance of our culture.

[cstanleytech]

38. Alot of holidays to celibrate things have their dark side. Christmas is the best example.

Its celebrated in places all over the world yet the figure it claims to celebrate is part of a religion that has an extremely dark history going back long before Columbus was even born.
So should we just totally do away with it?

[Moonwalk]

59. I, for one, would be delighted to get rid of Christmas and replace it with Yuletide...

...A non-demonimational, a-religious Celebration of the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. It would be wonderful to celebrate a winter holiday that carries no baggage and doesn't force shoppers to listen to religious music for six solid weeks ("Fall on your knees...!" Blech!). But we should keep Santa Claus--the mythological one that might be an "elf" who lives at the North Pole and is protecting the polar bears, not the one based on St. Nicholas. It just wouldn't be a proper Solstice without Santa. If that name's objectionable, we can just switch him back to "Father Winter."

[JEB]

68. It would make life a lot simpler.

I am a solstice kind of guy.

[cstanleytech]

69. "I am a solstice kind of guy." nothing wrong with that imo just like there isnt anything wrong with

christmas imo.

[JEB]

70. Aside from the obscene consumerism.

[TheMightyFavog]

37. If we must celebrate the first Europeans to come to North America...

Can we celebrate Lief Ericsson Day instead? At least the Vikings didn't try to enslave the Native Americans.

[cstanleytech]

39. Mmm actually the vikings had slaves, they were called þræll.

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrall

[Nye Bevan]

46. That would be cool, because we could wear horned helmets to celebrate it (nt)

[TheMightyFavog]

49. And drink mead!

[rhett o rick]

73. I don't think the Vikings wore "horned helmets". They wouldn't be practical in battle. nm

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

41. Yay! "History supplies little more than a list of people who have helped themselves...

"History supplies little more than a list of people who have helped themselves to the property of others." - Voltaire

[uppityperson]

42. Good, it should be. Yay for Seattle.

[4b5f940728b232b034e4]

44. Why not do away with the holiday completely?

As long as it still exists, people will still call it Columbus Day. It needs to disappear completely.

[Nye Bevan]

48. To memorialize the pure evil of the man.

Kind of like a Holocaust Memorial Day. So that we can honor his victims and never forget his atrocities.

[BlueJazz]

50. I have not paid any attention to Columbus day in years. I think the man was disgusting.

[Niceguy1]

51. meh

[KamaAina]

52. Oh. For a second there, I thought the NHL Blue Jackets were moving west.

[niyad]

65. works for me--I do not honour that genocidal thug.