Being lied to sucks, but it feels worse when you were lied to by people you were told to trust. For example: teachers. Even more specifically, history teachers. I have nothing against them personally, I happened to like all of my history teachers. What I had a problem with was what they were told to teach.
History is a subject that is supposed to speak the truth, which is critical because some of the best lessons are learned by looking at past mistakes. Why then, does primary school curriculum fail to tell us the whole truth? Spoiler alert: Betsy Ross didn’t make the flag, Thanksgiving was not a happy communal meal between the pilgrims and the Indians, Rosa Parks wasn’t the only African American to sit in the front of the bus, and the worst of all, Christopher Columbus wasn’t a brave explorer, community creator, or an honest business man, but rather was the creator of a large slave trade, a sex slave trade, and he was a rapist.
High School informed me about the Betsy Ross story, and cleared up the misunderstanding about Thanksgiving, but after going eighteen and a half years without knowing that Christopher Columbus was actually an ignorant and vulgar antagonist made me feel like I was betrayed by my elementary, middle, and high school education.
What is most appalling however, is that the United States and many other countries have a day dedicated to this man. Every year on the 2nd Monday of October, the USA celebrates Christopher Columbus Day, a tradition that dates back as far as 1937. This day of celebration makes no sense for Americans because not only did he do horrendous things, but he also most likely never stepped foot in North America. Many archaeologists claim he wasn’t the first to discover North America due to ancient findings that date back to 22,000 B.C.
Other countries, including some in Latin America, also celebrate the day of his arrival, calling it Día de la Raza (Day of the Race). In Spain, they celebrate the day of arrival and call it “National Day”. Italy has had a Christopher Columbus Day since 2004, and has named an ocean liner after him. Costa Rica, Belize, the Bahamas, and other Caribbean Countries celebrate holidays based on the day Christopher Columbus discovered various Caribbean islands.
Why anyone would want to continue to celebrate Christopher Columbus is beyond me, especially the people of the Caribbean who’s ancestors were directly affected by his horrendous actions.
It also makes me sick that we were never taught this information earlier. Obviously you can’t tell a 1st grader about rape, it's too gruesome. However they could still understand the idea of racism, hatred, and slavery. We were taught to believe that the discovery of the Americas was a proud day, and opened many doors for Europeans, which was what the white writers of our history books intended.
The real role Christopher Columbus played has been covered up for years, but it shouldn’t be. Especially today, when society is suffering from a negative rape culture that violates the rights humans have over their own bodies and sexuality. The internet almost broke when Brock Turner only served three months for raping a young, unconscious woman behind a dumpster. Obviously what Turner did was bad, and thousands of sexual assaults happen each day, but if this type of rape culture is what we are trying to eliminate, why then, do we still have a day of celebration for a rapist, a slave trade and sex slave trade operator, and a down right ignorant human being? Discovering new land and a whole new area of the world was a big deal, and that deserves recognition, but taking land away from indigenous people, turning human beings into a profit, and raping young women and children does not.
