I remember going to middle school in America and learning about Christopher Columbus being the 1st man to discover the Americas, while going back to a Caribbean household who had me thinking outside of the box. Can you imagine the confusion? Asking the question “How did Christopher Columbus discover America when there were already people on the land?”
As we continue to grow with the years (and technology), our knowledge is growing as well. Now I see the rest of the world asking the same question and many more. Why do we continue to honor Christopher Columbus for finding the Americas? We have a whole holiday dedicated to a man who took credit for finding land that was already inhabited. Let’s not even talk about how he and his people raped and killed many of the Natives and Indigenous people. Or how he sold Natives as sex slaves and used Natives as dog food (yes, he did that, click here for more info).
One can only question, “What were we being taught in school?” Were we being taught to honor a man with no morals and that it’s okay to steal? Or were we being taught this history lesson a certain way to preserve a facade of dominance and superiority within a certain culture while they instill fear into other cultures? Evidently, we have gotten the watered-down version of the Christopher Columbus story. It seems the more we dig into the hole of history, the darker the hole gets.
One can only question the real reason for Columbus day.