Why is Columbus Day still a holiday?

[earthside]

49. Bourgeois protest.

I find this attempt to vilify Columbus one of the more distasteful and counterproductive efforts of a small cohort of 'sophisticate', 'bourgeois' liberals.

While "white guilt" is thankfully a thing of the past for most progressives, there is yet a faction that is never happy unless they find something to whine and cry about -- while excoriating anyone and everyone who might have a different point of view.

Columbus Day has its roots in Italian-American heritage and pride; read this article by Colorado historian Tom Noel in the Denver Post: Columbus Day started in Colorado.

And, no, you don't get to pick who another ethic group chooses as its subject of honor ...

What I particularly dislike is the intellectual and historical dishonesty of the anti-Columbus folks. Christopher Columbus was a product of his time, he as an individual was not necessarily worse than a score of other "discoverers" or explorers throughout history. And, it was inevitable that the 'New World' was eventually going to be bumped into by technologically advancing seafaring Europeans ... sometimes things just are what they are.

The man Columbus becomes the object of demonization because it is politically and socially untenable to address the real reason for much of the inhumanity that the conquistadors brought to central and south America: the Roman Catholic Church. One immediately runs into uncomfortable difficulties because central and south America are still so predominately Roman Catholic. The bourgeois anti-Columbus protestors will find little support in telling the truth about the slaughter of indigenous peoples in the 'New World' on the theological grounds that they were inferior infidels whom priests sanctioned for death and/or slavery -- since the ancestors of those people today are the results of the Hispanic invasion of these two continents.

So, instead, they just call Columbus "worse than Hitler" and feel self-satisfied that they are trying to highlight an ancient injustice. Of course, this changes nothing.

When you write stuff as I have here the invective and the cries of insensitivity are screeching .... but the fact is that most folks in this country don't think of 'Columbus Day' as a major holiday and don't think it is worthy of the controversy that the likes of fraud Ward Churchill et al. try and make of it. Meanwhile, most Americans still regard the day as a moment to remember a particular point in our history and as a time for Italian-Americans to recollect their contributions to the culture and economy of the United States.