Columbus Day has passed. In some parts of the U.S. it is a big holiday, and it is a federal holiday for all federal employees and many schools are closed on Columbus Day. It's one of those quiet holidays in that few people pay attention to it because Columbus has been seen as a brave explorer who contributed greatly to western civilization with his voyages to "the new world', and that Columbus discovered the America continent so long ago that even though it was a major achievement it is hardly that important to people now. Why would anyone object to a day honoring such great explorer? A heroic and positive image of Christopher Columbus was always presented in U.S. schools. Until now.
It seems that some teachers and some schools are trying to present a more "balanced picture" of cruelties Columbus and the Caucasian sailors hurled at the Indians who met Columbus when he landed. Schools now focus on the spread of disease those explorers started in America when the new viruses and bacteria they carried on their filthy bodies (they never bathed then) infected and sometimes killed the Indians they dealt with. In other words, in this age of political correctness, they are making Columbus an evil man, replacing his achievements with a concept of "evil treatment" of Indians based on our current standards of morality.
How stupid! Using 21st century standards to judge a 15th century man is a case study in elementary illogic. Educators should know better. Here are some examples of political correctness winning over reason in the matter of the once honored name of Christopher Columbus:
* Kids are being taught that Columbus was a bad fellow.... very mean, very bossy. Uh, I think any ship captain who explored at that time in history was "mean". It was the mores of the age and for an educator to single out Captain Columbus is strange. Focusing on Columbus' achievements might be a better teaching strategy
* In some schools students are learning about the "Colombian Exchange" which consisted not only of his taking gold, crops and goods from the American land back to Spain (the country for which Columbus sailed) but also his "infecting" the natives with diseases that decimated the native populations.
* In McDonald, Pennsylvania, for instance, fourth-grade students at Fort Cherry Elementary put Columbus on trial this year, charging him with misrepresenting the Spanish crown and thievery. They found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison. Haha The teacher that conducted that idiotic lesson should be forced to walk a gangplank!
* Many schools say Columbus did not discover America, because how could he discover America if there were already people living here? Kind of crazy to define discovery that way, given the European continent that Columbus sailed for did discover the land and people of America for the first time when he landed there. According to the Columbus revisionists it appears that individuals are incapable of discovering truths or anything else for themselves or their contemporaries unless no other single being has also "discovered" it.
* In one school's Columbus lesson last year students were forced to stand in a cafeteria and not allowed to eat while other students teased and intimidated them, apparently so they could better understand "the suffering indigenous populations endured because of Columbus".
The impression one might get today is that in some classrooms here, there is not a balanced presentation of Columbus, nor a separation between the man and his achievements. Political correctness and trendy movements to demonize anything traditionally honored has produced a very negative about Columbus which is a matter of great concern because that is not accurate. I think this is true in many other cases in the U.S. not just in school classes fro kids. Truth has become what those with an agenda say it is.
Surely, every hero (Columbus in this case) is somebody else's villain. But schools should not propagandize kids by rewriting or distorting history in order to promote their own agendas. Someone should tell those schools and teachers to stop hurling mud at Columbus and instead start to search and teach the truth....maybe first becoming a student of that lesson themselves... before they teach kids. Oh...I forgot...they say that only ONE person can discover anything and the truth about Columbus must have already been discovered.
Hmmmmmm What is the lesson taught by these politically correct exercises? Is it "How to be irrational"? Maybe we should just put those Columbus revisionists in that same prison in which they have already put Christopher Columbus
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