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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChristopher Columbus statue in Baltimore vandalized.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/347341-christopher-columbus-statue-in-baltimore-smashed<snip>
A 225-year-old monument commemorating Christopher Columbus was vandalized early Monday amid the nationwide debate on removing Confederate statues and monuments.
A video posted on Monday shows the monument being smashed. It shows two unidentified people taping a sign reading "The future is racial and economic justice" on the monument. One of them then hits the monument with what appears to be sledgehammer while the other stands next to the monument holding a sign that reads "Racism: Tear it down."
"Christopher Columbus symbolizes the initial invasion of European capitalism into the Western Hemisphere. Columbus initiated a centuries-old wave of terrorism, murder, genocide, rape, slavery, ecological degradation and capitalist exploitation of labor in the Americas," the video's narrator, who identifies himself as "Ty," says.
"That Columbian wave of destruction continues on the backs of Indigenous, African-American and brown people," the narrator says in the video.
...more at link
eleny
(46,166 posts)kentuck
(111,052 posts)Does it tend to validate the "alt-left" labels?
I have a small problem with violence. Columbus may have been all the terrible things that have been written but does that mean he didn't discover America? Does he being a xenophobic, racist murderer change the fact that he is credited with discovering America? But that is another question.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)Stan Freberg knows.
kentuck
(111,052 posts)I think is more accurate.
kentuck
(111,052 posts)That's mellow!
malaise
(268,715 posts)kentuck
(111,052 posts)sprinkleeninow
(20,217 posts)Got a local station plays Island Reggae every Sunday afternoon. 🌴
malaise
(268,715 posts)Where are you?
sprinkleeninow
(20,217 posts)Back up north, our local radio station would offer ethnic musical programs on Sunday afternoons and I liked 'em. Hispanic, Polish (czardas and polkas) and so the Island music reminds me of times past.
I can PM you?
eleny
(46,166 posts)A 225 year old piece of fake news. And I guess some people are just sick of it. Sorry for not commenting clearly!
I recently read an article about how Lithuanians created Stalin World in an area of Grutas Park in the town of Druskininka, Lithuania. The author said it "... also forces us to ask: how should we commemorate genocide?".
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2016/10/welcome-stalin-world-theme-park-made-old-soviet-statues
It's a spot on question regarding what went on in the Americas, too.
kentuck
(111,052 posts)Even if it was by a genocidal maniac?
eleny
(46,166 posts)kentuck
(111,052 posts)Perhaps there could be a statue of Native Americans welcoming the immigrants to our shores?
eleny
(46,166 posts)So, no. Not a commemoration for Columbus.
I'm not going to be concerned with coming up with an answer that pleases everyone. I can just understand how people could become frustrated by a memorial that honors that genocidal maniac.
kentuck
(111,052 posts)I suppose I was thinking of the discovery of America separately? From the person that supposedly founded America? Because of the type of person that Columbus was, America should not be commemorated? Something about that seems like a concealment of some sort??
eleny
(46,166 posts)Btw, now that there's evidence of Scandinavian settlements in Newfoundland existing before Columbus arrived there's a lot more to talk about than Columbus.
Eric the Red was a much nicer person than Columbus, I bet?
eleny
(46,166 posts)It illustrates how America is about way more than Columbus. Perhaps that's an opportunity for us to study about America without elevating explorers to heroic stature. It does take guts to travel the way they did and at the same time recognizing that they had feet of clay by some new standards developing today.
eShirl
(18,479 posts)kentuck
(111,052 posts)You are correct.
FSogol
(45,452 posts)We can do that without glorifying Columbus.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)FSogol
(45,452 posts)Will he show up here?
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10027254561
kentuck
(111,052 posts)Maeve
(42,271 posts)However...coming from a state where the capital is named for Columbus, I'm going to have to say that this is an unwinnable fight at this time. Yes, he was wrong on many, many different levels. He was also the one who got credit (blame) for opening up the new world to the old. He was an explorer and kick-started so much, good and bad (Oh, and being of Irish descent, I've got to mention St Brendan the Navigator here and note that even Genoa believes Columbus went to Galway before heading to Spain and ports further west) http://www.vanderkrogt.net/statues/object.php?webpage=CO&record=ie001
Rhiannon12866
(204,779 posts)As soon as I saw this thread, I bookmarked it and keep checking back! It's been awhile, but he is nothing if not persistent!
DesertRat
(27,995 posts)It's like summoning Beetlejuice!
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)liquid diamond
(1,917 posts)ProgressiveValue
(130 posts)Buns_of_Fire
(17,158 posts)Hell, let's put up a statue or two of HIM.
It makes more sense then the pigeon-dropping-catchers of Rump that'll probably be proposed.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)how about a statue of him, instead?
jcmaine72
(1,773 posts)I'm hoping Columbus Circle in NYC will be the next place to be cleansed both of his statue and his name. There should be absolutely no place for a Columbus statue or roundabout bearing his name in our nation's largest city and cultural and economic nerve center. Throw it in the harbor beneath the Statue of Liberty. Symbolically, that's precisely where a statue dedicated to a genocidal slaver belongs: Forever underfoot of liberty and freedom.
Virtual Burlesque
(132 posts)Amerigo Vespucci was the Italian navigator and cartographer who demonstrated that Brazil and the West Indies were not Asia's eastern outcroppings, but a totally new continent. Because of this. the new continents were named "Americas", deriving their names from Americus, the Latin version of Vespucci's first name.
At least Amerigo Vespucci discovered something. He discovered that Columbus was wrong, this land wasn't Asia.
catbyte
(34,340 posts)I'm not crazy about celebrating the genesis of genocide in the Americas, but that's just me.
Response to kentuck (Original post)
melman This message was self-deleted by its author.
Petrushka
(3,709 posts). . . then . . . there's the decapitated statue found in a federal cemetery located in Columbus Ohio, a statue dedicated to Americans who died while prisoners of war there, Americans who, unfortunately, fought on the wrong side of an American war called "Civil."
http://www.10tv.com/article/confederate-statue-west-columbus-cemetery-vandalized