Christopher Columbus monument vandalized political reasons

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That's awful! And after all the great movies he's gifted us with.

Personally, I could have done without The Goonies, but Gremlins, Home Alone, and Adventures in Babysitting are classics!

LOL

A whole bunch of old statues have been torn down, on the basis that the person depicted held views not compatible with modern society. Will someone now please give me a metric on how much racism has been reduced as a result?

I just think people just really have to calm down.

All this stuff is getting us nowhere.

Think more along the lines of people want them down becuse there are fewer racists now than thirty years ago.Many old racist codgers and biddies have died off.Im from the South,trust me,very few people would have been vocal about it then.

That's all well and good, but I can't help but seeing parallels to certain groups I'm sure the people doing this would object to being compared to. Erasing monuments from history on the grounds that the people depicted had worse views than modern people? Just how enlightened would you expect a 16th century italian to be? Should the statue honouring Gandhi as the father of modern India be torn down because the man had some very low opinions of black people?

If Gandhi had a low opinion of black people, he spoke out of ignorance.

I wonder how many black people he actually ran into throughout his life.

He worked as an attorney in South Africa in 1915. I'm thinking he saw a few.

There you go, then.

Learn something new every day.

What did he say about black people?

I believe one of Gandhi's main contributions were the principles of "nonviolent resistance" which he developed. He was a man who evolved. He never denied his past; it's all out there in his autobiography. I just never read it in its entirety.

If you saw how he dressed in the late 19th century, you'd be shocked.

I'm pretty sure Thanksgiving isn't observed in most Native homes, and I think everyone knows why.

Also I think, in going with the current trend, the statues of Union generals involved in campaigns that led to the genocidal slaughter of millions of Natives, including women, children and elderly should be removed. They gave them blankets infected with smallpox to kill them off for example. If there's going to be the trend of removing statues, then it should include statues of anyone involved in crimes against humanity. Like I said, I don't think this was thought through well enough when it started.

Last edited by EzraS on 22 Aug 2017, 10:37 am, edited 2 times in total.

Fun Fact: When the Spanish colonialists were interacting with the Aztecs, the Aztecs carried around candles to mask the stink.

http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/clean-aztecs-dirty-spaniards/

That remains me of an old racist joke, though I've changed the races in my version.

"Why did God make Spaniards stink? So blind people could hate them too!"

Some Spaniards never die. They just smell that way.

I'm paraphrasing, but essentially; they are uncivilized and dirty, they are savage by nature etc. He was appalled at being expected to serve prison time among them, and referred to classifying the indian minority in South Africa as being on the same level as the native africans an insult.

It's possible that he abandoned these view for his new ones, which along with his tenuous commitment to non-violence also included ludditism and possibly sexual abuse of grandnieces.

But this is all a digression, the point is that Gandhi was still an important figure and had a key role to play in the history of india, and erecting a statue of him is not the same thing as saying he was right about everything, nor that everything he did was good.

But the actual event in 1621 was an event of unity. The Native Americans were helping the Europeans with things like how to grow crops in the Plymouth area. The Europeans were "thankful" for that assistance.

Unfortunately, subsequent events ruined that unity, and made Europeans, in general, ingrates, really. And Thanksgiving became a symbol, to Native Americans, of what the Europeans did to them.

These days, people are not celebrating the ascendancy of Europeans when they sit at their Thanksgiving table. They are merely giving "thanks."

My first thought: Someone watched the August 15th episode of Adam Ruins Everything.

I read a letter written by Columbus entitled "A Letter to Gabriel Sanchez" in which he wrote about his encounters with the Indians. He forbade his men from trading useless trinkets for the Indians' gold and silver. He called it "unjust." He also described the natives as intelligent and generous. Most of his emphasis was on how he wanted to convert them all to Christianity.

I find that letter rather puzzling, to be honest. It seems to contradict everything that historians say about his character.

That's what Columbus probably thought at the time.

But his desire for power corrupted him, and probably corrupted his opinions.

Power and ego tend to corrupt opinions.

Not to mention the man was in the employ of the Spanish monarchy. Whatever his wishes may or may not have been, I'm not sure his was the greatest influence in what was to follow.