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- #41
Really it's irrelevant who Columbus was
Cad, slaver, exploiter.... It's more important to know what role he played in the process of connecting the two hemispheres. As for Columbus Day why bother to change the name? How does that contribute to the factuality or non factuality of its history? Should all of Latin America now reject the Spanish language as racist and abusive?
I'm all for teaching kids the whole story
But I resist the Idea that removing Columbus's name from the day somehow improves us morally. It is quite impossible for us to reach back and correct the wrongs of History...even pretending that we can is foolish.
It's fun to watch white people act like they are being put upon when they are asked to do something decent.
Okay, let's put this in a more modern perspective. The world just found out Michael Jackson was a pedophile. Actually, we all kind of knew it for decades, but we ignored it because people enjoyed his music so much. But now we can't really deny it anymore. It really doesn't change one note of one of his songs, but it puts them in a whole new context. So yes, radio station and streaming services are pulling his music.
"but, but, Thriller was the greatest album of all time".. Maybe, but doesn't take away from the horrible human cost, does it.
Now, what Columbus did resulting in tens of millions of deaths, the start of the trans-Atlantic slave trade (because those Native Americans were dying off faster than the Europeans could exploit them, so let's bring in some black folks.). Lots of horrible things happened, but if you are a European-American, you benefited greatly. My father had a much nicer life here in America than he would have had in that crappy little town in Germany where he came from.
At a certain point, we need to stop and realize that this all had a horrible human cost. And while we should concentrate on righting wrongs in the here and now, taking down the statues of Columbus or Robert E. Lee would also be a good place to make amends.
That's just silly. Music is music and bad people are bad people. Michael Jackson is dead ... His Music lives on and it does not Molest Children. Now you really are stepping over into the realms of the thought police and the mentally vacant guilt by association crowd. You save no one, fix nothing and gain no moral improvement by trying to punish either his Music or anyone who decides to listen to it. What you do accomplish however is a false s sense of worth that can't
be bartered for a single cup of coffee.
Jo
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