Columbus Day No More

[ursulav]

The Oatmeal has a great thing up about Columbus Day. Go read it, I’ll wait.

This was rather relevant to me today because I’ve been on planes a lot, and was reading A Voyage Long and Strange by Horwitz, which is about the stuff that happened in America between 1492 and the Pilgrims.

Spoiler: There’s a lot of it.

Every time I read anything about

Comments

[agoodwinsmith]

And it's about here that we realize that education isn't about imparting knowledge to children; education is about social control. And being annoyed with teachers fostering the status quo is like being annoyed with munition factory workers producing munitions. The control factors are way beyond their reach.

[frostedblossom]

We didn't get the Salem Witch Trials over and over again (only once in high school, and that was mostly in English class while we were reading The Crucible). So I guess in that respect we were lucky. And I got to memorize a bunch of Native American tales in 2nd grade. Columbus was mostly a gloss-over.

Instead, we got the God-*&#@ed Donner Party. The Donner Party and how important it was to local history and how important it was to the Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny (it really wasn't) and blah, blah, blah wasn't it horrible how these people had to EAT EACH OTHER in order to survive. Over and over and over, every damn year until I wanted to scream for something about WWII instead.

My Dad, who grew up in Jersey, tells me he got the same treatment with the Revolutionary War instead. I think this one of those foibles that tend to be specific to a certain region. And now re-reading this I have realized just how damned strange education is in this country.

[neowolf2]

The Donner Party sounds like it would be more of a Home Economics topic.

[law_nerd]

Dinner Party Planning 101: What (not?) to do when more people show up than you've prepared to feed.

[frostedblossom]

*DIES LAUGHING FOREVER*

You win the internets today. :DDDDD

[devifemme]

Great line, "...Genghis Khan’s great feat was popularizing the yurt."

I also went to the "Oatmeal" piece, and appreciated their effort to replace Columbus with Fray Bartolome -- including the actual origin of our infatuation with Cristobal Colon. (Hispanic LatinoAmericanos call it Dia de la Raza -- "Race" not being as loaded a word ther as it is here, and connoting a "cultural" connection, NOT a racial one.)

Thanks, Justine

[dark_phoenix54]

I'm probably 20 years older than you, and the textbooks when I was in school were even worse than what you describe. Bartolome was not mentioned. Cortez was a mighty explorer and brought civilization to the native savages. The African slave trade was 'an economic necessity' - bad, but, you know, money. The founding fathers were flawless beings, nigh unto godlike. You get the picture. I, who love reading history, HATED every single American history class I took in school. Somehow, we all knew it was a load of bullshit- this was about the time things like that were beginning to be examined, when Black Pride was forcing a closer look at American slavery and stories about trade blankets as deliberate vectors of disease were circulating. It has been interesting seeing truth come out over my lifetime. And just as interesting to wonder why the fuck we still have Columbus day.

[henriekeg]

Being from the Netherlands, I never really realized how glorified Columbus was in the United States until I watched Disney's 'So Dear To My Heart'. (In case you are not familiar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ2cEYQpCgI --The art is gorgeous though