Truemors
It's become an annual tradition in Denver: the Columbus Day Parade and the Columbus Day protests by Native American activists. The issue is serious, and protestors say that honoring Columbus in essence celebrates the foundation of genocide, racism, and slavery in the Americas.
The Transform Columbus Day Alliance lays out the many charges against Columbus: well-known slave trader, conqueror, murderer, leader of what became genocide in the name of Manifest Destiny. Columbus Day began in 1934, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It became a federal holiday in 1971.
Many Italian-American societies worked to gain the honoring day for Columbus. However, the holiday hasn't gone down well with many Native Americans, including activist Robert Robideau.
"The issue of Columbus and Columbus
Day is not easily resolvable in a society spoon feed on its propaganda
of myths and historical lies that propagate the idea that Europeans
were a superior race of two legged homo sapiens that came to
save the Indians from their barbaric ways." Robideaux says in a poignant, and pointed, essay.
He's not alone. Historian and author Howard Zinn quotes the testimony of priest Bartoleme de las Casas, who wrote ""Endless testimonies . . . prove the mild and pacific
temperament of the natives.... But our work was to exasperate,
ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they
tried to kill one of us now and then."
One source says that more than 80 people were arrested during the protests. Among them: controversial AIM leader Russell Means and long-time Columbus Day protest leader Glenn Morris.
Long before today's parade and protest, activists were still seething over parade organizer's 2006 decision to have a 19th Century U.S. Calvary re-enactment troop carry the flag.
"Organizers of a protest march called the All Nations/Four Directions
March stepped up their rhetoric by likening last year’s use of
reenactors of a 19th century U.S. Army Cavalry unit to carry the flag
before the start of the parade to nooses used to intimidate black
students in the central Louisiana town of Jena.
“Being led by a cavalry unit in a uniform from the Indian Wars
exemplifies perfectly what this is about: It is about conquest,
genocide and hatred,” said Glenn Morris, a member of the American
Indian Movement leadership council and an organizer of the protest." -- The Daily Camera
The Colorado Chapter of the American Indian Movement--itself often
surrounded in controversy--began the Denver protests in 1982. However,
the protestors say that their work isn't done on just this one
day--it's a continuing educational process.
Should Columbus continue to be honored as a hero? Some say absolutely not. Italian-American supporters, many of whom counter-protested indigenous activists in 2006, say that Columbus is a hero.
The
essential question is this: are students today getting the entire
story, in all its bloody treachery and cruelty, so that they can
evaluate history and make up their own minds? If the Columbus myth
taught in schools has been replaced by all the facts, then future
generations will have a better chance of understanding our history and
each other.
Update: President Bill Clinton's 2000 Presidential Proclamation honoring Columbus Day is a case study in inadvertent irony.
"While more than 500 years have passed since Christopher Columbus
first sailed to these shores, the lessons of his voyage are still
with us. Brave, determined, open to new ideas and new experiences,
in many ways he foreshadowed the character of the American people
who honor him today. The proclamation also notes: "But the encounters between Columbus
and other European Explorers and the native peoples of the Western
Hemisphere also underscore what can happen when cultures clash and
when we are unable to understand and respect people who are
different from us. "Talk about spinning the truth! If we meet in the supermarket, we have an "encounter." And, given Whitewater and other issues, I wonder what Freud would say about this statement: ".......he foreshadowed the character of the American people who honor him today."
Police arrested American Indian Movement leader Russell Means and 83 protesters at today's Columbus Day parade for blocking the route.But there were no major incidents or violent behavior, police said.
At least 500 people protested, and many of them came prepared to draw attention and go to jail over their belief that the Italian American celebration has racist roots.
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