And that is understood. Columbus hate is sooo stupid. Sorry this a prime. Does history class have to emphasize for you that Native Americans were aware of their land?
@edwardc America for all it's flaws has been the equivalent of the Roman Empire. It's an extension of a world revolution in science, politics, and religion of Europe While pointing out American flaws you will be a much happier person accepting it's exceptional nature and loving being a part of it
Just for the sake of argument, that was by far the most significant "discovery" of America ...at least in terms of understanding present day history. And if we're arguing semantics, it wasn't even officially named "America" until 1507, which was set into motion by Columbus' "discovery." In any case, I do remember thinking about Columbus as a mythical figure in elementary. On the other hand, my second grader came home after Indigenous Peoples Day a few weeks ago and straight up told me that Columbus was a bad person LOL. So I'm thinking the way he's covered in schools has already changed a great deal over the past 30 years, and not really a hot button issue in 2021.
I remember in terms of my perception Columbus being depicted as somewhat delusional towards the end of his life in thinking he had reached the Far East.
Ok one more because this is amusing. I know this won’t matter to you and you will go on with your “history class” teachings but…you think it was EXTREMELY dangerous for Columbus to believe the world was round. That the church was threatening to execute people for believing this…so he goes to Spain…to talk to the king and queen…who are extensions of God and the Holy Church…during the height of the Spanish Inquisition to bring Spain back under total Church control…to ask them for money to fund his “the earth is round” voyage?
In Columbus times most of those educated knew that the world was round. This had already been proven by the 2nd Century BC by Eratosthenes in Ptolemaic Egypt. That knowledge had been rediscovered by the time of Columbus. Besides that European navigators already knew that the further East or West you go the Sun will rise earlier or later. That is due to the curvature of the Earth and one of the things that allowed navigators to determine position in the open ocean with no landmarks. Columbus' mistake was that he believed that the circumference of the Earth was much smaller so that you could sail going Westward from Europe and get to Asia relatively quickly. The original calculations by Eratosthenes and others were actually much closer to the the actual circumferance but Columbus disagreed. That was why many were skeptical of his journey. What wasn't known to Europe at that time was that there were two continents in between Europe and Asia. Many believed that there was nothing but ocean and that Columbus would die from starvation and lack of freshwater long before he reached Asia. What people like Gallileo, who was a bit later than Columbus, where persecuted for wasn't that the Earth was round but that it wasn't the center the of the Universe.
Both things can be true. Columbus' "discovery" of the Americas was very historically significant but he was also a bad person. Even in his time he was considered a bad person and one of the reasons why he died in poverty and reviled.
What? This is simply not true. We have records from his request to Portugal to back him financially. The Portuguese knew the world was round but did NOT know about the existence of the Americas. They believed the distance to Asia was more than twice what Columbus believed it was and that their ships could never make it. The Church did not reject the round earth theory, they had long before accepted the sphere. Columbus had no quarrel with the church. That idea is ridiculous. He sought and was granted an audience with the crowns of Portugal and Spain! Both of them considered his request. Portugal formed a commission! If he was proposing something they considered to be heretical he would have been dead right then and there. Instead he was proposing something that the scholars considered stupid (and they were right) which was that Asia was less than 10k miles away and they could reach it in their boats without running out of food and water. (Which they almost did anyway!) BUT I also agree that it's weird how much we've minimized his "discovery." No, he didn't discover an unclaimed land, but for purpose of modern discussion he did in fact discover America for Europe. It was a hugely risky voyage he undertook and while he was deadass wrong about what he would find, he did still find land that was reachable by European ships and changed the world.
Also, for the record, European Catholic paintings from like the 11th century on show the world as a sphere.
Yes, the immigration to north America from the 1400s through the 1700s was largely from Europe. The United States was founded by a bunch of Englishmen. Other major population contributions came from other European countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, and Ireland. That is why there were millions of German Americans and less than 200,000 Japanese Americans who came much later, largely after the Chinese Exclusion Act. People who have been part of the fabric of the country for more than a century are going to be viewed as "more American" than the new arrivals. The Irish and Italian immigrants dealt with discrimination as being less American when they arrived in the 1800s. Being the newcomer means you are less integrated into society, then generations later you are as American as anyone else, especially when you fully assimilate instead of forming insular immigrant communities. The very fact that you include brown suspects being treated differently kind of proves it isn't based on black people being slaves in the 1800s. Why would that transfer to "brown" suspects? I would suggest it has much more to do with the relationship between modern police and the modern black and brown communities than it does knowledge of slavery that was outlawed more than 100 years before the officers were born. I don't think that is a serious effort to overturn the 13th Amendment and reinstate slavery. Seems more like a dark joke to troll people by some edgelord teens.
You do know that the origin of the police came from slave patrols which are now known as police. The only reason i added brown suspects is to show that they are treated the same because they aren't of the caucasian persuasion.
They must go to one of them CRT schools. More seriously, I think the Columbus example is a good one, because the moral panic about CRT is often about teaching young children that whitey is bad. And, in the case of Columbus the historic problem has been the opposite -- 'patriotic' myth-building. His history was whitewashed and he was lionized to elementary school children. He was made into a hero of a Eurocentric discovery narrative. In high school, they don't bother with that crap -- Columbus is just the kickoff to the semester on colonialism. But, when I was in elementary school we had rhymes about him ("Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in fourteen hundred and ninety two"), we learned the names of his boats, we colored in pictures of Columbus meeting the Indians, and perhaps most importantly repeated this insidious 'discovery' story that puts the student in the shoes of the European. It was pure hero-worship chest-thumping nationalist bullshit. Thanks to CRT-like scruples, elementary schools aren't teaching Columbus that way so much any more.
It's not nationalist b.s. It is unfortunate what has happened to Native Americans, but America's discovery is important because America is a Roman empire type entity that is the European progress from The Renaissance. Again for elementary kids Columbus tightly wraps America's founding in terms of of the significance on politics, religion, and science. Again we are talking about teaching kids and there is no reason to complicate the lesson in terms of his flaws.
