So you’d prefer to remember both the colonizer and the people who were massacred by colonization?
Weird take, but ok.
Blamemeta@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Culumbus Day. It doesn’t sit right with me that they took an existing holiday when August doesn’t have one.
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I mean…that sounds like a good idea.
Celebrating both sounds like a bad idea.
Maeve@kbin.social 8 months ago
We can’t help but remember both. Not repeating history, not so much.
DeepFriedDresden@kbin.social 8 months ago
They took a holiday about an Italian who had nothing to do with the US much like that man took indigenous people prisoners? That's what didn't sit right with you? So weird to think an Italian funded by the Spanish was somehow important enough to a country that didn't exist for another 300 years that the government made it a federal holiday.
More time passed between him erroneously finding the Americas and the signing of the Declaration of Independence than the US has even been around.
TacoNissan@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Columbus really wasn’t someone worth celebrating
Blamemeta@lemm.ee 8 months ago
He told Europe that America existed. Thats a massive turning point in history.
Assman@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
They already knew. The Norse found it 500 years before Columbus.
1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Knew is a strong word
The norse found it but 500 years is a crazy long time, and they didn’t know it wasn’t just a series of arctic islands
AA5B@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Norse may have been there, but there was no lasting impact. No records, no memory, no further exploration …. Compare that with the impact of Columbus’ voyage
Deceptichum@kbin.social 8 months ago
So was Hitler starting WW2, but no one celebrates “Hitler Day”
WarmSoda@lemm.ee 8 months ago
We knew the Americas existed long before Hitler told anyone about it.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Isn’t Hitler Day the day he offed himself, though?
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 8 months ago
What do you think 4/20 is? That’s Hitler’s birthday!
andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 8 months ago
Someone can have a big impact on history and not be worth celebrating.
The thing I think about all the time is that I think our holidays should have a point. Labor day celebrates the accomplishments of workers and encourages us to adopt their best traits: industriousness, teamwork, determination.
Independence Day is supposed to inspire us to be grateful for the courage showed by the founders who seceded from Great Britain, and model their (supposed) virtues, such as liberty.
Thanksgiving is supposed to celebrate harvests, gratitude, the kindness of strangers, etc. There are certainly problems with the history it exhalts, but it makes sense.
Juneteenth is a celebration of diversity, the achievements of black Americans and of abolitionists, Memorial day is about military valor and sacrifice, etc.
Columbus Day just makes no sense. Even if we ignore that Columbus was a monstrous person hated even by his peers,… what exactly is the point of the holiday? Columbus isn’t known for any particular virtue at all, and the discovery of inhabited Caribbean islands by a Spanish-financed Italian explorer has no clear meaning for us as Americans. It barely has anything to do with us.
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 8 months ago
As everyone knows, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand asked Columbus to set sail and find chill friends to share treats and peacefully hang.
Everyone kicked it and lived happily ever after.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
He told Europe that he had found a route to India, but something seemed off….
Amerigo Vespucci told Europe it was a new continent.