-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
Serious Should we celebrate Columbus day?
- Thread starter THE_IRON_...KENYAN?
- Start date
- Status
In all the times I've interacted with ButteredToast you've done little more than talk about what a history buff you are
So how do you link that report with a straight face and cherry pick it away from the fact that the FBI sent King a letter telling him to kill himself? A letter that is in the National Archive. According to COINTELPRO (the FBI's program for disrupting 'subversive' elements of society), one of the instructions given to FBI field operatives was to "Restrict the ability of individuals to participate in group activities by character assassinations, false arrests, surveillance."
So how do you link that report with a straight face and cherry pick it away from the fact that the FBI sent King a letter telling him to kill himself? A letter that is in the National Archive. According to COINTELPRO (the FBI's program for disrupting 'subversive' elements of society), one of the instructions given to FBI field operatives was to "Restrict the ability of individuals to participate in group activities by character assassinations, false arrests, surveillance."
It's definitely not done with a straight face. More of a statement about the role about how perceived morality shouldn't negate societal accomplishments.
Last edited:
Columbus's men kidnapped and enslaved many of the indigenous people on every island they visited, and those that resisted were killed. Columbus himself even has a personal account of raping a native woman. His legacy set the stage for the colonialization and genocide of New World peoples.
He is definitely an important historical figure, but celebrating the man the way we do is definitely in bad taste. Would like to see the Holiday officially renamed Indigenous Peoples' Day, which is what many people have already tried to do. The holiday itself is not a huge deal but it just adds insult to injury for groups of people who were already highly oppressed.
He is definitely an important historical figure, but celebrating the man the way we do is definitely in bad taste. Would like to see the Holiday officially renamed Indigenous Peoples' Day, which is what many people have already tried to do. The holiday itself is not a huge deal but it just adds insult to injury for groups of people who were already highly oppressed.
yes, columbo is responsible for genocide. but obviously that must just mean accidiental contact with disease, and theres no way that im the one whos misinformed. and im NOT gonna read any posts or evidence to the contary. also mlk might have done a rape one time, which is just as bad as FUCKING GENOCIDE and equally relevant to this discussion of columbus day
Using made up shit to detract from the legacy of a black man in order to use a whataboutism defense for an objectively awful (even by 1400/1500s standards) white man. ButteredToast is literally the Republican Party.
Last edited:
Also I don’t get Columbus Day off, so no it shouldn’t be celebrated.
Wait, so is your point that we should care less about how Columbus was terrible in basically every way because he accomplished stuff (which he actually rally he didn't, he barely actually discovered or did anything that wasn't awful)? That is actually like, super fucking disgusting and I don't think it's helping your arguement nearly as much as you seem to think so
Pretty Republican Party of you to say that an unsubstantiated claim of sexual assault is made up because the claim comes from a inherently biased source with a recorded political agenda.
Additionally, unlike your ignorant and unsubstantiated claims about Columbus being objectively awful by the standards of he time, I didn't make anything up. I called the allegations questionable and brought up governmental records. I'm not detracting from King's legacy, I'm using the allegations against him as an example to show how even someone universally seen as respected, accomplished and heroic as King could be reduced to a scum bag within a certain context. I could have easily brought up the criticisms on Ghandi and Mother Teressa, but there isn't an American holiday celebrating them and that doesn't fit the topic being discussed.
He wasn't terrible in every way. He is terrible in the scope of present day morality for his treatment of indigenous populations, sure. Your ancestors who lived in the 1800s are probably disgusting by today's standards for what they did or allowed to happen. Your actions will be seen as disgusting and horrific by your future ancestors. It's a bogus way to accurately assess someone in a historical context. My point was there is no saints in this world, and no one perfect that is decent enough to be worth celebrating.
You claiming that that Columbus didn't do anything is moronic. His discovery of new lands outside Europe changed the history of Western Civilization. Yes, it was an accident. Is Alexander Fleming now discounted and the good that came out of him erased? All of the lives that were impacted and saved are now meaningless? No, that'd be ridiculous. Whether or not it was an accident, Columbus' voyage drastically redefined the course of human history. Erikson didn't do that. Cabot and others were directly influenced by it. He was the one directly responsible for the expansion of European influence of the Americas.
It is perfectly acceptable for the United States to give some type of acknowledgement to a man that made the nation and its way of life somewhat popular. Columbus Day is barely a holiday anyways. No one goes around "celebrating" Christopher Columbus, it's more just an observation of a historical figure that impacted our nation. It's as highly regarded as Presidents Day and Arbor Day. I don't think it deserves to be anything more than it is now, and I doubt there are few people out there that do. It's fine being where it is as a trivial holiday on par with presidents day. It allows us a time to talk about his impact to American society and can also give us time to acknowledge his atrocities. It's valuable to know how we got where we are, no matter if you are for/against it or where your politics lie.
Find me disgusting all you like for saying that Columbus is an important figure to the nation. To me, you're uneducated for not recognizing his significance and batshit for thinking that removing his name off of a calendar is going to bring any benefits to society.
Last edited:
distinguish between when the personal feeds into or is the same as the political and when the personal is distinct from (may undermine may not) the political. “the political” here refers to the collective historical memory of their actions (inherently political both in its fact and in its construction - we celebrate political acts based on an active process of deciding which ones) and an understanding - implicit promotion - of the continued existence of those movements. chris columbus through his actions established to some extent the relation between europe and the indigenous americas (maybe better is “is in historical memory an avatar for the forces that established...”) which meant ofc a long history (NB: future to him; things did not have to be the way they were) of slavery and genocide. his endorsement can be inferred from his participation. mlkjr lead / was is symbolic of a political movement most ppl (shouts McCain et al) saw as good. the concern raised in that series of posts was for isssues unrelated to the political movement his name is used to invoke. if there is genuine good evidence of the rape claims I would like to see them. that would be grounds for reconsidering his symbolic status at the head of the movement. but forgive me if I don’t take j edgars word for it. to sum: colombus day celebrates a genocidaire for initiating a genocide.
kilometerman
Banned deucer.
"ur post are BAD" another flawless post by epic college age suburban white girl pretending to be a sassy black chick on the internet
Literally noone who has graduated elementary school celebrates Colombus for "initiating a genocide" lmfaoooo. They're taught that Columbus was the first to discover the New World, which is technically true if you consider publication to be a required step in discovery
What a shocker that ButteredToast/Kilometerman didn’t reply to Soulfly’s last post, the one with an actual substantiated claim that Columbus’ contemporaries also found many of his actions abhorrent.
But nah the pro-Columbus day group kind of just ignored that one. I have no clue why
But nah the pro-Columbus day group kind of just ignored that one. I have no clue why
By your same logic, we should not celebrate Thanksgiving for the same reasons.
We should eliminate Independence Day because it celebrates the accomplishments slave owners and racists in creating a society that for the majority of its existence reinforced those values.
Or Veterans Day because it celebrates the proliferation of the military industrial complex and American colonialism.
Or Christmas because it discriminates those belonging to non Christian faiths.
If you're taking a stance that you want to abolish the practice of all federal holidays, make that argument I guess? It's a completely different argument than I'm trying to make though.
If the mods are still wondering why Cong is such a dead forum, the fact that Kilometerman and ButteredToast's posts are still up and accounts are still active two days into this racist vomit is your answer. You can have an active, thriving forum or a safe space for Nazis, not both.
What if your comment gets them banned? You will be doing just like Columbus killing some people that had different beliefs than him.HE truly believed indigenous were wicked and wrong.Well, thats the same way you feel about Kilometerman and ButteredToast (which sounds like a cartoon show btw)
What is the point of history if not to critique (and learn from) the actions of the past?
Unless I'm misunderstanding what he said, I'm not in dispute with anything Soul Fly has said at all. He did a substantial amount of harm and a lot of bad things. Many of his contemporaries found his actions abhorrent. Yet he wasn't the only one to participate and those things were still allowed to happen. And those crimes were still funded by the Spanish Crown through their colonization of the new world.
I'm not going to be bothered looking up details and specifics, but there were founding fathers who objected to Washington and Jefferson's ownership of slaves and found that practice abhorrent. But by the standards of society as a whole at time, I wouldn't say that those who owned slaves were deemed as reprehensible.
I dont know how it has nothing to do with me saying that negating someones accomplishments through their perceived morality is a slippery slope to go down.
My arguments have nothing to do with race or Nazis.
Exactly my point? I'm no where near saying we should throw a parade for the guy all around the and just ignore all of the bad he has done. I believe we do a pretty good job of balancing the good and the bad of his life and his accomplishments outside of an elementary school setting where delving into genocide and scaring children isn't really reasonable. And there is a place for that in our society.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I've more/less said my piece on the subject and unless there is any actual debate to be had on the merits of my points outside of "fuck you" or "you suck" I'm done responding.
Last edited:
itt: the whitewashed view of Columbus' voyage that is taught to elementary schoolers. Columbus was a tool for colonization sent directly from Spain; not solely responsible for the genocide of Native Americans (obviously), but he played an important part, especially in the Caribbean. Skimming a Wikipedia article would disprove everything you just typed.
Cresselia~~
Junichi Masuda likes this!!
Celebrating Columbus day is like celebrating Genghis Khan day or even Hitler day.
If you find killing lots of people is cool and powerful, then maybe you might want to celebrate it.
If you find killing lots of people is cool and powerful, then maybe you might want to celebrate it.
I like how this trash thread went from
1. Columbus didn't do anything really bad himself. <insert troll arguments about smallpox blankets>
2. Okay so he was bad. So what? A lot of people were bad back in the day. <i.e: I know he literally engaged in slavery, torture and genocide... i just don't give a shit kek.>
3. SJWs hate white people, what about the rapist Martin Luther King Jr. #BelieveAllSurvivors.
meanwhile it appears what esteemed moderator vonfiedler finds most questionable and egregious about this entire affair is how user butter and toast over here misled him about being a history buff.
1. Columbus didn't do anything really bad himself. <insert troll arguments about smallpox blankets>
2. Okay so he was bad. So what? A lot of people were bad back in the day. <i.e: I know he literally engaged in slavery, torture and genocide... i just don't give a shit kek.>
3. SJWs hate white people, what about the rapist Martin Luther King Jr. #BelieveAllSurvivors.
meanwhile it appears what esteemed moderator vonfiedler finds most questionable and egregious about this entire affair is how user butter and toast over here misled him about being a history buff.
destinyunknown
Banned deucer.
Mongolia celebrates Genghis Khan's Birthday
- Status