Why do we celebrate Columbus Day? Why do we celebrate the genocide?

Question

Is this vestigial from the old Imperial Columbia days? Id this a testament to our Imperial desgins?

Answer 1

Why do you assume that your two questions mean the same thing??

NO ONE who celebrates "Columbus Day" has any intention of "celebrating genocide". The point is that this date was extremely important in history. That is not to say that everything that came of it was good... but, on the other hand, neither was it all BAD!!

For most it is not even celebrating the person of Columbus (or we'd observe his birthday!) but rather an EVENT, a major historical turning-point. If you like, you might think of it as or even call is something else -- "Discoverers Day" or "(New World) Discovery Day".... which is the real point, after all.

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A few side notes

a) there is much to criticize Columbus for personally, to act as if HE himself is responsible for every death that came from the New World-Old World clash is not justified. It's not as if he planned or advocated such things.

b) In addition, though there were certainly many wrongs, killings, etc. in the following centuries, be careful at least to distinguish. SETTING OUT to wipe out a people -- that is lage-skill killling, with INTENT -- is genocide . But if a lot of people die from exposure to new diseases for which they have no immunities [which accounts for a LARGE number of native deaths], something no one expected or planned, that is NOT genocide.

c) Finally, a balanced assessment will recognize good and bad on 'both sides'. It will, for instance, recognize that just as many white Europeans killed, enslaved or otherwise seriously wronged many native Americans, there were natives who killed, enslaved and wronged others, e.g., the Aztecs, who had some advanced culture AND brutalized others... including human sacrifice. And others, on both sides, did great good. Good AND bad people in EVERY group... as it has always been all over the planet throughout human history!

Answer 2

Columbus day isn't celebrated anymore, it's just there. Kids still go to school and people still go to work except the few. I think the few are mostly people who do government work. It was not to celebrate the inhumane treatment of the natives, it's meant to celebrate the historic first explorer landing on American soil. You could say it's a testament to imperialist designs, it's there too whether or not Columbus is celebrated.

Oh, and Columbus wasn't the first to make landing to America. They said Chinese explorers did, hundreds of years before Columbus and had the continent mapped out too.

Answer 3

You advise the vikings hit upon the Americas previously he ever did. What you're asserting is truly like Christmas. could we stop celebrating it as a results of fact Christianity is proper to torturous techniques, deaths of many, and faith frequently has turn one guy against yet another? and the majority do not trouble with the guy himself. they only choose a ruin day.

Answer 4

I don't celebrate it. He was just some Italian guy in a ship.