A member of our staff confided with us about a conversation he had with his eight-year-old son.
He asked if he was happy that his son had off for Columbus Day. The boy didn’t know what he was talking about. “What’s Columbus Day, dad?” “It’s the day we’re celebrating on Monday.” “Oh, you mean Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”
When the dad asked the boy if he knew who Columbus was, he replied, “Isn’t he the man who helped poison the Indians?”
In our new woke, politically correct era, Columbus is now portrayed as an evildoer.
The trend is to stop celebrating the second Monday in October as Columbus Day and instead use it as an opportunity to honor those he allegedly abused.
There’s no question that some of the methods of the European settlers were harsh. But I guess we could say that that would pertain to just about every group of explorers venturing into new territory since the beginning of time.
The relationship between Europeans, and then the Americans, with Indians in North America was complicated. It wasn’t so simple as to say that the settlers sought to kill off the Indian population and that the Indians were passive toward the new settlers. In fact, there was tremendous \warfare between one Indian tribe and the next.
We’re now seeing horrific critical race theory, and DEI instructional mandates coming from the New York Board of Regents that rolls out 40 videos to be shown in state parks, entitled “Revisit the Revolution.” https://nypost.com/2024/10/11/opinion/nys-board-of-regents-latest-assault-on-education/
It emphasizes how people of color worked with the revolutionaries, only to be betrayed by them after the war. Another video states, “Since its founding, the United States has never upheld a treaty made with an indigenous nation.” They are looking to distribute these materials within our schools next year.
The constant berating of America to our children by our legislative and academic leaders is a prime reason why so many of the upcoming generation dislike the nation in which they live. The majority of young people have said they will not fight to defend America if it was attacked.
How about teaching this instead to our kids:
Columbus was an imperfect human being, but the opening up of America to the rest of the world helped usher in a future homeland where the world’s greatest democracy would flourish. It helped precipitate a vast explosion of world trade.
Readers are encouraged to check out the book Suicide of the West by Jonah Goldberg. It notes how present leaders of the West are doing their best to denigrate their own systems and culture which have produced the most advances, best quality of life, and largest extent of freedom that ever existed in the world.
People lived as serfs and under totalitarian rule for the vast majority of human existence. Then two things suddenly erupted around the time of Columbus and immediately thereafter.
One was the opening of trade routes that allowed for an explosion of wealth and an opportunity for upward economic and social mobility. The other was the advent of democracy that placed the worth of the individual above that of the state. These values would usher in the Renaissance, which percolated — coincidentally enough — a short time after Columbus expanded European curiosity to other worlds.
It would take some time before the new world that Columbus discovered would result in this new American society that truly did become a beacon of light for the rest of the world. But, make no mistake, America’s astonishing achievements could never have happened without Columbus taking the brave step of sailing into the unknown.
This new land that Columbus discovered is one where people all over the world still strive to come to. It provides opportunities and freedoms that don’t exist in many other places.
That’s something that should be celebrated and embraced, not disowned as our younger generation is being taught to do.