Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Can't Fight the Past
So here's my take on the reading on Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress reading -
When I finally read it - I was a bit surprised, only for the fact that it went more into depth with what I already thought about the subject. I knew Columbus did horrible things to the indians and that was clear enough in his reports. It definitely was horrible and people will get angry and disgusted about it just like I was - but what can you really do? You can't change what happened in the past. A war against it would solve nothing and would be a waste of time. Instead - maybe we should just push this information out to the public's eyes to give them another take about this man and about what actually happened. Though it is kind of misleading since they completely removed the horrible things done to the Indians from the textbooks - they literally don't even teach about it. But is that at all surprising when it comes to America? We just want ourselves to look good compared to everyone else - leaving out the stuff that would be detrimental to our image of "Freedom".
I guess this is such a touchy subject to some people- me included because it just kind of makes you mad doesn't it? In fact it's quite irritating to think that the information to the public is being altered and not giving the full story of things. But like Howard Zinn said - there's really no point in trying to fight the past. All we can do is learn from the compassion of the past and push that forward towards the future rather than focusing on our nation's gruesome history and the horrible things our ancestors did. That's not to say we should forget about it though because it too is an important part of our history.
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I hope that in the future children are taught of the horrors that Columbus inflicted on the Indians but its good to learn and move on to improve society. The past is the past and you can't fight that.
ReplyDeleteI dont understand the point of telling people history if you arent going to tell people the full story. Let alone the truth about what people have actually done.
ReplyDeleteI also believe people should leave things in the past. People also should be held accountable for their actions. What Columbus did was wrong and his poor behavior should not be rewarded with a national holiday.
ReplyDeleteAs i said in a previous post Columbus day should be cancelled. He should be held accountable for what he did, there should be no reason for him to be seen as a hero. We should leave what he did as 'heroic' in the past.
ReplyDeleteI believe that since we are now informed of what happened in the past people should be made aware of the truth and of what Columbus really did. The generations before us were not made aware of the awful things he really did, so now that we are made aware of these issues we should tell the full story of how it happened. People should be held accountable for the things that they do, and the truth should be told about the lies everyone has heard for centuries.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you statement that a war against something that happened in the past is pointless because you cant change what has already happened. I also believe that it is not right that the American education system try to cover these things up by failing to acknowledge the in the history textbooks. The suffering that the American Indians endured should not be something that just gets swept under the rug, it should be something that all Americans are aware of.
ReplyDeleteI was also shocked when I had realized everything Columbus had done. I think it is crazy that he has a holiday that celebrates him when he did all of these terrible things. I believe it should be taught more about the true things he did, and he should become less celebrated.
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