What's On My Mind Today: Have you seen the Frosted Mini Wheats commercial with the cute, little, smiling, African-American boy who says, "Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in 14hundred 92." The commercial is VERY disturbing to me when Columbus was single handed responsible the beginnings of slavery for his own personal gain. His journals and diaries comment on the kindness bestowed upon him by the Africans and Indians he encountered before he enslaved them. Documentation where he participated in raping female slaves for his own pleasure because they were DIFFERENT from himself. Yet we recognize him for his ACCIDENTAL discovery.
A professor of mine said "Celebrating Columbus day is like honoring Hitler." Until I took his class I thought it was just as simple as the Mini Wheats commercial states it...but its not. He had a hand in putting millions of people into slavery, stealing the land from the Native Americans and even wiping out an entire tribe of Native Americans. YET WE HONOR HIM.
We are openly outraged at the Holocaust, and rightly so, but no one cares about the autrocities suffered by the ancestors of African and Native Americans. WHY NOT?
History for both groups of people has been marred with unfair exchanges...Indian Reservations were locations to hoard the Native Americans like cattle when they were the true and rightful owners of the continent we call home, North America. Or the 40 acres and a mule offered to slaves...
You can enjoy the day off, but take a few moments to check out the "real" Christopher Columbus.
I agree with you. Columbus did not "discover " anything. It was already here and there were human beings already living and working the land. The Spanish wanted more money and went in search of it. I guess history applauds him because he went so far and Europeans ended up over here, but history also forgets what their greed and selfishness did to the natives of the lands they conquered. In taking a college history class I realized the brutality and inhumanity of the Spanish and every other nationality that wanted a piece of this country.
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