“We are sending a signal across the nation and to the global community that we make these changes in the spirit of truth-telling,” Council Member Alondra Cano said ahead of the Council meeting.
“Now that we have established Indigenous People's Day, every child -- whether that child is native or whether that child is not -- will learn the truth about where America really comes from," added U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison.
Originally Posted by HonestChieffan:
Scandinavians are the healthiest and cleanest of people. Danes, Swedes, Fins, Norsks are wonderful people with a rich history.
Except the Norse that first came to North America were from Iceland and Greenland.
The Norse did bathe at least once a week weather permitting, which most Europeans did until the Black Death and most did afterwards*. The Norse also bleached their hair blonde which helped kill lice and other parasites.
*The myth of Europeans not bathing was due to historians studying the upper class. The upper class didn't bathe because it was a sign of your social standing that you didn't have to do the work that made you sweat or made you encounter things that would make you dirty. The lower classes bathed and continued to bathe. [Reply]
Originally Posted by GloucesterChief:
Except the Norse that first came to North America were from Iceland and Greenland.
The Norse did bathe at least once a week weather permitting, which most Europeans did until the Black Death and most did afterwards*. The Norse also bleached their hair blonde which helped kill lice and other parasites.
*The myth of Europeans not bathing was due to historians studying the upper class. The upper class didn't bathe because it was a sign of your social standing that you didn't have to do the work that made you sweat or made you encounter things that would make you dirty. The lower classes bathed and continued to bathe.
Once upon a time, a guy sailed to the wrong place, killed the people he found, and took their stuff. As a result, 522 years later, my bank is not open. This is a true story. [Reply]
Seattle joined the rogues gallery of turd-birds going with the "indigenous people's" line. Wonder what the self-hating white fleabags on the Columbus OH city council are thinking [Reply]
Originally Posted by Prison Bitch:
Lotsa self-hating whites there. At least the make good coffee so they're not totally useless
Meh. It's a complicated situation.
1) European powers expanded into this continent. They had a distinct technological advantage over the people who were already here and conquered whole civilizations. By modern thinking this could be viewed as deplorable but it was, more or less, the "way of the world" at the time.
2) We are mostly the descendants of these conquerors. There are of course exceptions depending on when your ancestors arrived but all of us are benefactors of this expansion, other than people related to the tribes that crossed the Bering ice/land bridge (presumably) and were here when the Europeans arrived.
3) I think some people do go over the top in attempting to assuage their "white guilt" even almost flagellating themselves metaphorically about "white privilege." I don't see the point of that. It accomplishes nothing. There isn't anything you can do to make what someone else did hundreds of years ago fit into your present system of ethics just because you benefit from it. You've got to live in the present.
4) That being said, there is no real reason to celebrate a Christopher Columbus day. The guy presided over some truly horrible shit. His story should be taught in schools because it is part of a bigger story about how we came to be here, but there isn't any reason to venerate the guy.
This month's Smithsonian Magazine had an interesting short article about Marco Polo and how he may have had knowledge of the Western Hemisphere 200 years before Columbus. Check it out:
Originally Posted by Rain Man:
This month's Smithsonian Magazine had an interesting short article about Marco Polo and how he may have had knowledge of the Western Hemisphere 200 years before Columbus. Check it out:
His daughters may have plunged back into their father’s notes in hopes of securing his reputation, surmises Stanley Chojnacki, a University of North Carolina expert on gender relations in 14th-century Venice, and “to claim by reason of defending him a certain measure of respectability and status and importance themselves.”
