10/12/20 Columbus Day Grif.Net - Why I Still Celebrate this Holiday

[Robert Griffin]

I CELEBRATE HISTORY.  While the modern “cancel culture” is vocal and violent in their attempt to destroy and degrade all of American History (and for that matter Western Civilization), paving the way for an overthrow of our government and usher in the next socialist state, I opt not to join the frenzied mob. 

 

Some states have renamed Columbus Day as Indigenous People Day.  No word on whether the District of Columbia will change its name from a reference to the famous explorer. Few parades and commemorations occur.  Iconoclastic vandals want to rip his name from textbooks as well as statues from parks.

 

Though in 1492 Christopher Columbus “sailed the ocean blue”, the U.S. holiday that bears his name only began 86 years ago. Yet I still opt to celebrate this day rather than succumb to today’s to guilt-based politics.

 

I CELEBRATE MULTI-CULTURALISM. Obviously, Columbus’ Italian heritage gave pride to a huge persecuted minority population in America.  It is hard to imagine that 150 years ago, Italian/Sicilian immigrants to our nation had similar civil rights issues that our Black population have long endured. Why?  They were not considered “insiders” or even “real” Americans of the Mayflower ilk. 

 

But Columbus days reminds the world that America wasn’t built only by Protestants of British descent but by people from a variety of nations, religions and cultures. Columbus was a trail-blazer for the inclusion and diversity that is unique to the New World. The Wall Street Journal reminds us that celebrating Columbus Day is not honoring a perfect man or a saint, but an ideal that is “akin to Martin Luther King Jr. Day which honors another flawed man who symbolizes a minority’s triumph over discrimination”.

 

I CELEBRATE FLAWED HEROES. I respect men and women such as Columbus. His daring and resourcefulness is still worthy of admiration. I honor him for his vision, all the while recognizing he was not perfect and some of his later actions as governor of indigenous tribes are particularly offensive to me. And not just me; even the king and queen of Spain removed him from office!

 

But I find him an inspiration to rise above the faceless mediocrity that degrades much of society today.  I join those who say, “It is right to criticize their failings, but wrong to deny their greatness and the inspiration they can give.”

 

I CELEBRATE AMERICA.  Revisionists today turn a blind eye toward the negatives of the New World (slavery, torture, and cannibalism was widely practiced) and all the so-called ‘facts’ young people today think of pre-Columbian America was learned from Disney movies.  That was the world to which Columbus arrived, but it was not the world that was changed forever. 

 

1492 was a watershed year that revolutionized the world and laid the foundation for our nation today. The rich tapestry of our nation’s first threads was woven that year and the weaving of America still continues. Good, bad, even ugly, but it is my nation that I celebrate on October 12^th, 2020.

 

~~

Dr Bob Griffin

b...@grif.net www.grif.net

"Jesus Knows Me, This I Love!"