Opinion of "once a year" Native American activists

[they don't love you like i love you]

Think the equivalent of Christmas and Easter Christians but half the time. They say nothing about Native Americans or the brutality of early colonialism almost all year until Columbus Day comes near...then they become very outspoken about how terrible Columbus is and how disgusting the holiday is, then proceed to forget about it immediately afte Columbus Day. They are also surprisingly not uniformly liberal and can just as easily consist of College Republican types.

FF obviously.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

You mean the people who hate Thanksgiving? Mega HPs.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

You mean the people who hate Thanksgiving? Mega HPs.

He's taking about people who hate Colombus Day, not Thanksgiving.

[Lief 🗽]

Better than "no times a year" Native American activists.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Better than "no times a year" Native American activists.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Better than "no times a year" Native American activists.

[IceSpear]

Better than "no times a year" Native American activists.

[SWE]

Better than "no times a year" Native American activists.

[memphis]

The historical record is overwhelming and unambiguous. Columbus was a nasty person. You'd think the Italians could find somebody better to venerate.

[Mechaman]

Meh, I'll go with lean FF here, even if I think a lot of them do it mainly for their own vanity.

We need to be reminded that we have this nation because some dumb who was probably boffing the Queen of Spain had enough financial backing to go half way around the world with three little ships with the only instructions being "go west, eventually we'll hit dry land!" who also happened to have several different diseases (probably a combination from all the matrons, exotic "savage" women, and probably even a few dudes that his contemporaries have swept under the rugs.  I mean let's be real fair, Columbus was a very naughty boy. . . . . very naughty) at the time.

I can certainly understand the reasoning behind wanting to be rid of Columbus Day.  However at the same time, I cannot but help but think that many people, particularly the guilt conscious white liberal brigades, do it mostly to satisfy their own social justice egos and as a vain reminder to Native Americans that "hey we're not racist guise!"  Selecting some dumb who lived in an era when people thought that disease was a pro-Jesus thing or something or other as a figure of outrage while avoiding the issue most other times of the year really helps them forget that their enlightened Ivory Tower predecessors (yes I'm going there again) were also a bunch of mass murderers, slavery sympathizers, rapists, pillagers, genocidal maniacs, authoritarians, child molesters, hypocrites, christian supremacists, greedy goldmongers, and etc etc etc.  But of course, it is better for us all if their narrative of socially awkward Pilgrims who loved everybody and their descendants were consistent defendors of the weak, the poor, and the hungry and oppressed of all races instead of the foaming at the mouth genocidal extremist fundamentalist maniacs they really were is sold to our schoolchildren so they have the misguided belief that white elites can be trusted.

SO yeah, I guess that about sums up my thoughts on the matter.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Better than "no times a year" Native American activists.

[JerryArkansas]

HP because if they really feel that strongly, fight for it all year long, don't just say for about one month that something is bad and then do nothing about it. Now I agree with them,   but come on, fight.

[TDAS04]

Better than "no times a year" Native American activists.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Lol... How many of you have ever lived in a community that had a significant Native American component?  BRTD has before. 

There's a natural acceptance of modern white culture on all but a few days each year...  Fishing opener and Columbus Day.  There is support among the whites in these communities for autonomy and mutual respect and cooperation with natives.  But this kind of stuff drives a wedge and doesn't foster the best feelings.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I share Mechaman's sentiments. The desire to end Columbus Day strikes me as an ineffectual gesture that allows white liberals to forget about the awkward past; the cause of so much guilt in the lives of whites with college degrees. Meanwhile, Zapotecos and Nahuas are abused as waged slaves before being deported to Oaxaca or Puebla and Lakota children are stolen from their mothers to be raised by white foster parents for specious reasons. The indigenous peoples of the Americas are not noble savages or cultural artifacts or mythical beings, they're still oppressed and immiserated and the "once a year" Native American activists are silent about the plethora of everyday problems facing the indigenous in the US and ancient farming communities in Mexico. Ultimately, this is because "once a year" Native American activists are brand activists: they don't care about living Indians, they care about their identity as self-aware Americans.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I share Mechaman's sentiments. The desire to end Columbus Day strikes me as an ineffectual gesture that allows white liberals to forget about the awkward past; the cause of so much guilt in the lives of whites with college degrees. Meanwhile, Zapotecos and Nahuas are abused as waged slaves before being deported to Oaxaca or Puebla and Lakota children are stolen from their mothers to be raised by white foster parents for specious reasons. The indigenous peoples of the Americas are not noble savages or cultural artifacts or mythical beings, they're still oppressed and immiserated and the "once a year" Native American activists are silent about the plethora of everyday problems facing the indigenous in the US and ancient farming communities in Mexico. Ultimately, this is because "once a year" Native American activists are brand activists: they don't care about living Indians, they care about their identity as self-aware Americans.

^^^
More or less, and I'd like to add that attacking Columbus in support of Native American rights is like attacking Hitler for invading the Sudentland.

My question for both the "once a year" and "every day of the year" activists is the same, though: what at this point, besides addressing poverty and inequality in the present day Native community, can be done? This jack just can’t be put into the box. That’s why I find them so annoying.

[Lief 🗽]

More or less, and I'd like to add that attacking Columbus in support of Native American rights is like attacking Hitler for invading the Sudentland.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

More or less, and I'd like to add that attacking Columbus in support of Native American rights is like attacking Hitler for invading the Sudetenland.

By that, I meant that attacking Columbus is like missing the main point. IE, ignoring the Holocaust and saying "Hitler's worst action was invading Czechoslovakia."

[SWE]

More or less, and I'd like to add that attacking Columbus in support of Native American rights is like attacking Hitler for invading the Sudetenland.

By that, I meant that attacking Columbus is like missing the main point. IE, ignoring the Holocaust and saying "Hitler's worst action was invading Czechoslovakia."

......

[Lief 🗽]

Okay but Columbus' worst action was genocide, sooo...

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Okay but Columbus' worst action was genocide, sooo...

But he wasn't the only perpetrator of it. I already have posted on the subject in another thread, but my main point is that these "once a year activists" just assume that Columbus was the only person in those three hundred years to have done such a thing. I was agreeing with DeadFlagBlues, not arguing with his point.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Okay but Columbus' worst action was genocide, sooo...

But he wasn't the only perpetrator of it. I already have posted on the subject in another thread, but my main point is that these "once a year activists" just assume that Columbus was the only person in those three hundred years to have done such a thing. I was agreeing with DeadFlagBlues, not arguing with his point.

It's more like Columbus day is an obscene holiday because it celebrates a legacy of colonialism and genocide. He becomes the symbol. Not that Columbus was a particularly stand up guy, mind. You should read into his spell as governor of Hispaniola (?) if you haven't already.

This is a post that I have made earlier this evening in which I articulated my point stronger.

Why do people blame Columbus for everything? Columbus was a brutal dictator in the manner that he governed his colony, instituted the first slavery in the New World, and even once had a woman paraded naked and then had her tongue cut off for dissent, among other things. But is he responsible for the entire genocide of the Native peoples? Is he to blame for the spread of diseases that wiped out so many cultures? Surely that would have occurred no matter who arrived in the New World.

But yes, Columbus Day in particular should be wiped away. I don’t see why it should be replaced with an alternative holiday, but we certainly shouldn’t celebrate it. If Italian-Americans wanted a holiday, I’m sure we can find another. Al Capone day anyone?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Columbus is the subject of more attack than other brutal colonial governors because:

1. He was the first European governor of a New World colony.
2. He has a national holiday named after him in a country whose modern borders he did not even set foot in.

[Mechaman]

I share Mechaman's sentiments. The desire to end Columbus Day strikes me as an ineffectual gesture that allows white liberals to forget about the awkward past; the cause of so much guilt in the lives of whites with college degrees. Meanwhile, Zapotecos and Nahuas are abused as waged slaves before being deported to Oaxaca or Puebla and Lakota children are stolen from their mothers to be raised by white foster parents for specious reasons. The indigenous peoples of the Americas are not noble savages or cultural artifacts or mythical beings, they're still oppressed and immiserated and the "once a year" Native American activists are silent about the plethora of everyday problems facing the indigenous in the US and ancient farming communities in Mexico. Ultimately, this is because "once a year" Native American activists are brand activists: they don't care about living Indians, they care about their identity as self-aware Americans.

^^^^
This.

American History seems to be privileged white people reminding us all that they are both a) white, and b) privileged.

[they don't love you like i love you]

The thing with Columbus that Sanchez and others are missing is that he really WAS that bad. As Lief put it once he's one of the worst human beings in history hands down and this is true even if judged by the standards of the time instead of the modern era. OK let's consider about this: The same people who were responsible for the Spanish Inquisition removed him from his post for being too brutal.

Columbus Day is about as appropriate as if Belgium had a Leopold II day, because the two are basically comparable, and both were obviously atrocious even by the standards of the time.