Ward Churchill (remember him?) references the book, Smallpox and the American Indian, during his testimony in his civil suit against the University of Colorado at the City and County Building in Denver, Colorado March 23, 2009. Churchill is suing the University of Colorado for wrongful termination.
AP photo.
Today, I picked up 2 kids I carpool to the gymnastics club from their magnet school, as I do every Monday. Apparently, there was no mention about Columbus Day. Nada. Zippo. Nothing negative or positive. But they did watch a performance by dancers dressed like Mayan/Aztec Indians; and the older one said it was “Latino Heritage month”.
This school was closed for Yom Kippur (where 99% of the kids are black and Hispanic). But they were open today, with no mention of Columbus, but did celebrate “Latino heritage”. Oooookaaay…..
I’m recognizing my country, less and less, as time wears on….
While Federal government offices in Washington, D.C. are closed for Columbus Day, students in Maryland, just a few miles away, have a full school day. What was once a guaranteed day off from work is now a gamble, with many schools and workplaces open on Columbus Day.
Columbus Day is not commemorated universally. Federal and state offices are closed, the United States Postal Service will not deliver mail, and many banks are shuttered.
But public schools in large cities like Los Angeles, Miami and Dallas are open, while in Washington, DC, New York City and Chicago they are closed
It has been a growing trend for more than 20 years.
Why would a public school close for Yom Kippur in any district where the number of Jewish students was less than, say, fifty percent?
Mazel Tov, goyim.
If the school closes for Yom Kippur I wouldn’t be surprised if they quit serving lunches in recognition of Ramadan.
In Chicago, we the kids get a day off for Casimir Pulaski. We have a large Polish population as well as a very large Irish population so I’ve never had a problem with it. Chicago has a Columbus Day parade.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the radicals who are seeking to eliminate Columbus Day will soon work on getting rid of Thanksgiving Day for the same reasons. Europeans, as viewed by the native American-Indians, especially those English folks that celebrated Thanksgiving dinner with the Indians, swiped their land, fought and killed them, and killed the natives throughout the years afterward.
But both holidays are yet strongly supported by many. The issues with the natives are primarily those of theft of their land and slavery. However, as almost all historians will agree, the American Indians, as well as their counterparts in South America, the Incas, Aztecs, and Mayans were, prior to the appearance of any European, killing and enslaving themselves.
As a matter of record, the Spanish priests that accompanied the conquerors of South and Central America were appalled to learn that those most beautiful pyramids constructed by the Aztecs, and other tribes, were used to sacrifice other lesser tribe members if they were not enslaved. The gruesomeness of this human sacrifice slaughter led to an almost immediate cessation of this practice as ordered by Cortes. It seems futile for the descendants of the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, and other early peoples to declare that they were “enslaved” by the Spanish. It may have very well been the case, but in 1492 conquests of this kind, even throughout Europe, were ruthless and cruel — but usual. And, from the viewpoint of those many lesser tribes that were actually enslaved and scarified to Aztec gods; the Spanish were liberators.
Some Mexican descendants of the early inhabitants of the “Americas”, in their politics and protests, often claim that the conquests did not “discover” the continents; they were already here. But the statement that the Spanish discovered the Americas is from a European viewpoint. When you go camping in the woods and go venturing, it is not uncommon to return to your camp mates and say you just discovered a river a few miles away. “Discovered” in this context, as well as for early Europeans in the Americas, means “learned about”.
Odd that teachers would teach it was any other way. You could, for the sake of arguing, say that Abrahan Lincoln was guilty of war crimes in much of what occurred during the revolutionary war. Are they doing away with the celebration of Abraham Lincoln during President’s Day?
I am sick of the Smallpox meme. Why nobody ever points out that NOBODY knew what it was back then, is strange to me.
Every time any of you hear that from anyone, point out that in exchange, the natives in S.America gave the Europeans syphilis.
@ Patvann
I take it you mean nobody knew about smallpox when Columbus came to America? The Blackfoot tribe was nearly wiped out by smallpox in the late 1700′s and early 1800′s.
As for syphilis? That’s what you get for messing with our womenz.
The stuff about Columbus, the discovery of America and the theft of lands…One way or the other, the Americas would have been found and conquered. That’s what nation’s did. The African’s did it, the Roman’s did, it the Greeks did it, the Persians did it, the Native Americans did it. I for one am pretty happy with the way things turned out. I’d much rather be in my truck heading for Longhorns to grab a steak than sitting on a horse hoping I could kill a buffalo so I could eat. There were some pretty ugly dealings with Native Americans though. I hate Andrew Jackson. What he did to the Cherokee for gold in Georgia is just plain wrong. Same with the Sioux in the Blackhills. I won’t go into the Bureau of Indian Affairs and some of the crooked Chiefs that keep their people in poverty, that’s a different topic.
@Aqua:
I think he means the perpetuation of the myth that the U.S. Army deliberately infected native Americans with smallpox and committed genocide, by such biological warfare. Ward Churchill is one of the “scholars” who has promoted such a myth, offering no citation for his claim:
This might be misleading, since Amherst posed the possibility of doing so in a letter, but there’s nothing to show it remained as anything more than a thought.
The myth of deliberate small-pox infestation arises from distorting two British letters:
Every civilized people started as uncivilized invaders. They may have had good intent on their foray into the unknown world but events they encountered dictated their actions. For anyone to say that Columbus “Gave” the Indians smallpox when they didn’t know they had it is ridiculous. Any major event in the world’s history can be dissected into good and bad parts and the emphasis made by the readers bias. To use the event of the discovery of America as one of the bad parts is putting political correctness above common sense.
Ward Churchill is certifiably insane. He is the perfect example of why our schools are under attack by unAmerican freaks. I see why schools kids are not performing in “reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic”. They are being brainwashed to believe that people like Churchhill are the only ones to save them from total idiocy. What a crock! Ward Churchill and his ilk needs to be put to sleep.
Madalyn
@ Aqua/Wordsmith
I was thinking more precisly about during the time of Columbus himself, nobody on the planet knew what Smallpox was, let alone how it spread. Humans of all cultures had barely any knowledge at all about germs, virus’, and patholgy.
-That said, both of your comments are very informative.
@ Wordsmith
I don’t think I buy into the Army handing out smallpox infected blankets. Everything I’ve ever read or heard about how the Blackfoot contracted smallpox was through trading horses with Settlers.
And Ward Churchill is a tool. I don’t know how anyone could believe anything he says.
As for Columbus, he was a great explorer. That is how he should be remembered.
>>Everything I’ve ever read or heard about how the Blackfoot contracted smallpox was through trading horses with Settlers. >>
As in…they gave him lodging while they were trading and he was thereby infected by contaminated blankets??? otherwise…what do horses have to do with it?? Horses are definitely not carriers…! That theory seems like _really_ a stretch!!
@ suek
Um, no, some of the Settlers had smallpox. It wasn’t done intentionally.
The other glaring blind spot of the left-hate-Columbus is the fact that this was a very brave and intelligent person who gave up eveything and litterally begged his way accross the Atlantic Ocean to pursue a vision that the world was round. Think of the dinky little boats he had and the total unknown that he and his men faced. Just like our Congress today. NOT! God, just the sheer undertaking alone not even considering the personal hardships that they all faced would have stopped most men. This man is a real HERO of the biblical kind.
They say you shouldn’t criticize farmers with your mouth full. It can also be said that Indians, or indigenous peoples (Aztecs, Incas and Mayans, too), should not criticize the Spanish (who commissioned Columbus) while sitting on their horses. For it was Columbus and the Spanish that brought horses to North, Central and South America.
Point being: It could be said that the conquering Europeans brought much good to the Americas. No reason to trample on the achievements of Columbus; he was a very capable navigator.
I thought he was dead?
@Aqua #12:
That was the point I was pushing, wasn’t it?
@ Wordsmith
I thought I saw it in there somewhere.