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[gutter_trash]

Whether or not he lucked out when discovering America for Spain is irrelevant.

Without his voyage of stupidity, there would be no America as we know it. His impact cannot be ignored.

Of course this has nothing to do with the statue argument, I just wanted to correct you in trying to dismiss the impact of Columbus.

Rediscovering the Americas was an inevitability due to the wind sailing patterns off the coast of West Africa.

The Portuguese were circling the African continent to get to India (they got to India),
A bounce off West Africa got them to Brazil quickly


To say that Europeans would have never rediscovered the Americas is untrue.

They got overly competitive during the " Age of Exploration "

 

[A Link to the Past]

Sounds reasonable. There's numerous old buildings in Denmark that was founded by slave money. Might as well take them down, while we're at it. I believe there are also monuments to several viking kings. They were bastards, that raped and pillaged.

I'm very curious whether you understand the difference between a building and a statue.

 

[ClosingADoor]

I'm very curious whether you understand the difference between a building and a statue.

The thing talked about is not a statue though.

 

[TyrantII]

Some history for y'all

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswi...us-sailed-into-u-s-history-thanks-to-italians

Columbus was pushed as a bridge to lessen anti-Italian discrimination back when Italian Immigrants we're being attacked as the others.

Apparently it worked and the reconstructed symbol this day is taught in just about every public school - completely divorced from the history.

Honestly, as an Italian American I'm not sweating Columbus statues coming down. But I do think there's a HUGE learning experience in the reason they went up in the first place that no one seems to want to talk about.

It's the same story over and over as far as finding an "other" to vilify and distract.

 

[His Majesty]

We learn about plenty of bad history without glorifying the worst ones in monuments. You think the history of columbus would cease to exist without these shitty monuments?

And once again, preservation of historical artifacts is not the same as glorification. This statue has a clear cultural and historical value and that should be reason enough not to destroy it.

Put it in a storage room or a museum for all I care but you don't go around destroying 250 year old statues.

I can of course sympathize with why it was torn down but I always wanted to see that statue. Seeing the Metronome in its place, the scale of it must have been very impressive.

If you're ever in Lithuania you should visit Grutas Park. It's basically a garden filled with recovered Soviet-era statues and relics. Pretty cool.

Would have been a real shame if all of this history, architecture and a clear reminder of the past would have been destroyed.

 

[A Link to the Past]

The thing talked about is not a statue though.

Point stands regardless.

 

[aeolist]

It seems they have been charged for it. Which should be the case here also if the person is found. You don't go randomly destroying things.

And even then, I'd see a difference between an actual protest movement calling for this and an individual going about it in secret.

Nobody is saying we need to honor Columbus. Nobody is saying we need to keep statues or monuments for him around. But you can't just have individuals doing that as they please at random.

laws are not inherently moral, and laws protecting monuments to monsters should not be honored

 

[A Link to the Past]

laws are not inherently moral, and laws protecting monuments to monsters should not be honored

Monsterments

 

[ClosingADoor]

laws are not inherently moral, and laws protecting monuments to monsters should not be honored

So laws should not apply when you feel like it? That sounds like a dangerous path to go down there.

 

[ahoyhoy]

Rediscovering the Americas was an inevitability due to the wind sailing patterns off thr coast of West Africa.

The Portuguese were circling the African continent to get to India,
A bounce off West Africa got them to Brazil quickly

Saying it was "inevitable" basically allows you to discount the accomplishments of every individual.

It's not like he did this shit two days before someone else was set to do it. And besides that we would have a very different world had Columbus not sailed when he did.

 

[UserNotFound]

Or maybe we should discuss what it actually means to have a statue of a certain person.

Because right now I am getting the feeling that there being a statue of Columbus translates to some people as "we all agree that every single thing this person did is amazing". Which is obviously ridiculous.

What a statue should probably translate into is something more like: "back when they built this, this person was celebrated over this and this achievement, now allow me to put this into perspective by looking at it from a modern day point of view".

That's why, rather than destroying statues, I think we should replace them. Put the old ones somewhere on display for educational purposes, but decorate our cities with statues of figures that fit our current society and moral standing, so that generations from now the children of our children's children can learn from us.

The most adult and measured response in this thread. I agree with you.

There are mechanisms in place for removing statues that don't require outright destroying them(or might, it'll depend). I don't want mob rule to descend onto the world to make that decision. We live in a democracy in the US. Giving people social media and easily accessible technology to organize will continue to be a struggle in controlling the mob.

I was raised Catholic. I know about the dark history of Columbus and his justifications for the acts he committed (Cannibalism was the biggest one). We were also taught about how and why he committed acts against the natives in a morality class in Sunday school. Not everyone is being turned into a cynical jerk who just wants to cause violence and chaos and find some cause to destroy public property over.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

I'm surprised that I'm even surprised that some posters are condemning this on some "we must not do this lest we repeat the past" type of bullshit. Comparing this to Nazi book burning? Amazing.

 

[TBiddy]

I'm very curious whether you understand the difference between a building and a statue.

I'm very curious if you have a point you'd like to make without sounding condescending.

 

[aeolist]

So laws should not apply when you feel like it? That sounds like a dangerous path to go down there.

"laws should always be honored no matter what" is far worse, as should be immediately apparent with even the most cursory amount of historical knowledge

 

[elyetis]

I hope the person who did this won't listen to the Hardcore history The celtic holocaust before a trip to europe.

 

[Yamauchi]

Huh, I guess I just assumed only slave owners/confederate statues were being taken down. Now we're taking down statues of any and all oppressors? If there's a John Smith statue they definitely need to take that one down too. John Smith was as asshole to the natives and had sex with underage girls like Pocohantas

They're going to have to rename cities, towns, and counties, too. A lot in New England, actually.

 

[TyrantII]

laws are not inherently moral, and laws protecting monuments to monsters should not be honored

If only there was a way to change a law in a liberal democratic republic.

"laws should always be honored no matter what" is far worse, as should be immediately apparent with even the most cursory amount of historical knowledge

There's a difference living under tyranny and just things being hard and taking some effort. The history of the US is about legally changing laws at the voter booth, not through violence.

 

[Neuromancer]

Actually, all of the books about Columbus are gone now, thanks to this vandal.

It took a Nazi terrorist attack to get them removed, that's not a good example of them going on their own.

uh do you think baltimore would have acted that quickly and decisively if not for the incidents in charlottesville and durham?

This decision had been in the works for a couple of years, but yes recent events sped it up.

However if you look back at my post I was responding to this specific claim:

"Going through the "proper channels" is naively wishful thinking. You don't think it's already been tried with this or recently with the confederate monuments? Drastic change requires drastic measures."

In this case the city council went through the proper channels and removed them.

 

[TumblingHippo]

So laws should not apply when you feel like it? That sounds like a dangerous path to go down there.

Were you also a staunch defender of sodomy laws? There's ton more examples of unjust laws.

 

[aeolist]

Of only there was a way to change a law in a liberal democratic republic.

as i said, pulling down that durham statue seems to have had a wonderful effect on various municipal governments

 

[gutter_trash]

History must be taught factually

History should not be distorted, overhyped for propaganda purposes.

Columbus in the US is too positively portrayed just to push their Manifest Destiny agenda and to broom under the rug the extermination of all Natives on the island of Hispanola and other atrocities.

Columbus did to the Natives what Hitler did to the Jews

 

[Imm0rt4l]

as i said, pulling down that durham statue seems to have had a wonderful effect on various municipal governments

.

 

[ClosingADoor]

"laws should always be honored no matter what" is far worse, as should be immediately apparent with even the most cursory amount of historical knowledge

With that same knowledge, you can also argue that people thinking the law shouldn't apply to them is a bad thing. Or that tearing down whatever you feel like can also have bad consequences.

We are talking about a monument - which is a large word for the thing looking at the picture, but whatever - that has been made in the 1700s. And some guy drops by and says: this needs to go. With nobody else having a say in it. Doesn't that strike you as wrong?

How about the city council deciding that, or have a historian look at its historic value first whether it can be moved to a museum and set in the relevant context.

Were you also a staunch defender of sodomy laws? There's ton more examples of unjust laws.

This is such a strange comparison I don't even know what to say.

 

[Heroman]

So laws should not apply when you feel like it? That sounds like a dangerous path to go down there.

Eh ,not really.

 

[A Link to the Past]

I'm very curious if you have a point you'd like to make without sounding condescending.

Apologies, let me clarify.

This is a false equivalence that is immediately shown to be silly by the fact that comparing something with practical use to something that has none makes no sense. It is no more of a slippery slope than it was when Donald Trump said that removing Lee's statues would lead to the removal of Washington's statues.

With that same knowledge, you can also argue that people thinking the law shouldn't apply to them is a bad thing. Or that tearing down whatever you feel like can also have bad consequences.

We are talking about a monument - which is a large word for the thing looking at the picture, but whatever - that has been made in the 1700s. And some guy drops by and says: this needs to go. With nobody else having a say in it. Doesn't that strike you as wrong?

How about the city council deciding that, or have a historian look at its historic value first whether it can be moved to a museum and set in the relevant context.

It strikes me as something that a lot of people agree with, and was probably not something someone did on a whim.

 

[MilkyJoe]

There's a difference between destroying statues that glorify Christopher Columbus and burning books that discuss his history.

We can remember Columbus without a statue. We can create context through something besides a grandiose monument seemingly endorsing his actions. Perhaps a monument to the victims of Columbus instead?

There's a statue of Emperor Commodus in the Vatican.

 

[aeolist]

There's a statue of Emperor Commodus in the Vatican.

i mean the vatican is basically private property

 

[BudokaiMR2]

Columbus was a genocidal maniac, a fraud and oddly overhyped by Americans for some reason.

the first Europeans to land in the Americas were the Vikings (Leif Ericson) 500 years before Columbus


why do you guys overhype him anyway?

This is very easily explained and one of the reasons it bothers me that people handwave destruction of a monument like this.

The holiday itself was actually adopted during a period when Italian-Americans were facing heavy discrimination. I belive it actually officially started a year after something like 20 Italians were lynched somewhere in the south.

His legacy was basically embellished and he was turned into hero for America in an attempt to build common ground between the new wave of immigrants and the local populations.

A lot of that is from memory from a college class dealing with minorities in America so I may have some details wrong.

 

[TyrantII]

History must be taught factually

History should not be distorted, overhyped for propaganda purposes.

Columbus in the US is too positively portrayed just to push their Manifest Destiny agenda and to broom under the rug the extermination of all Natives on the island of Hispanola and other atrocities.

Columbus did to the Natives what Hitler did to the Jews

Correction here. His public image was aligned with Manifest Destiny, not pushed as. Please read the link above. He's very much in the mythos because Italian Americans used him as a symbol to beat back racism and oppression.

Which is Ironic, but if we're going to complain about the mans history, we also need to talk about the history of why he was put forth as an olive branch.

 

[TBiddy]

Apologies, let me clarify.

This is a false equivalence that is immediately shown to be silly by the fact that comparing something with practical use to something that has none makes no sense. It is no more of a slippery slope than it was when Donald Trump said that removing Lee's statues would lead to the removal of Washington's statues.

As I wrote, there are numerous monuments of viking kings in Denmark. There are also viking museums museums, lots of followers who dress and act like viking and summer camps, where you and your kids can live like a viking.

As we all know, vikings in general were ruthless, slave-traders and what have you. If we are to follow the examples given, we should tear them all down and close anything like that. It makes no sense. It's not exactly a secret that Columbus was a dick. But he was a product of his time, and quite frankly, I'm really surprised that people are a-okay with statue-busting of historical figures.

 

[Cymbal Head]

someone please help I am not good with flowchart

 

[BruceCLea]

But he directed Home Alone and Harry Potter!!

 

[jett]

Columbus was a genocidal maniac, a fraud and oddly overhyped by Americans for some reason.

the first Europeans to land in the Americas were the Vikings (Leif Ericson) 500 years before Columbus


why do you guys overhype him anyway?

I believe it's some sort of pandering to Italian-Americans.

 

[ClosingADoor]

It strikes me as something that a lot of people agree with, and was probably not something someone did on a whim.

Might be. If you have any links that show there have been protests, petitions, etc, it would be helpful.

 

[ahoyhoy]

There's a statue of Emperor Commodus in the Vatican.

Monuments like this exist in a trickier gray area. These statues are appreciated today not as a reverence to the individuals themselves but instead to the historical context in which they were erected/revered. We want to see statues of ancient Roman emperors for the sheer historocity of the objects themselves rather than try to emulate the feeling the statues might have evoked in a time when the genocide and suppression of Roman Emperors might have been seen as a boon to their society.

It can be argued that Statues of Columbus, especially ones erected over 200 years ago, offer some good history as to what the people of the early United States revered. It begs the question as to what should be considered a "cut off" for when recent history becomes ancient history and statues like this are more interesting to be studied rather than revered.

 

[TyrantII]

I believe it's some sort of pandering to Italian-Americans.

Incorrect. It's pandering to WASPs.

Monuments like this exist in a trickier gray area. These statues are appreciated today not as a reverence to the individuals themselves but instead to the historical context in which they were erected/revered.

And that's the issue with Confederate statues. They were erected mostly in times of great racial strife by white folks to remind African Americans who was boss. Most went up around plessy vs ferguson and around the civil rights era. Most were funded by know racist organizations. Today they're still revered by Nazis and the KKK for the symbolism of racial superiority; the dog whistles of the lost cause or states rights or the agressive north.

They're not being torn down because of the person they were based on. They're being torn down because of the symbolism pushed by the people that erected them.

 

[NewGame]

I'm surprised that I'm even surprised that some posters are condemning this on some "we must not do this lest we repeat the past" type of bullshit. Comparing this to Nazi book burning? Amazing.

I'm surprised that I'm even surprised about others being surprised about ideologues attacking figures, statues and artefacts they deem 'inappropriate' regardless of the degree of severity, popularity or origin.

I'm not talking about Nazi Book Burning™ I'm talking about a time people destroyed things they didn't agree with.

Did you scare those crows away?

 

[OG Shaka Zulu]

An angel gets its wings everytime whataboutism is invoked.

 

[His Majesty]

someone please help I am not good with flowchart

If Columbus is a genocidal asshole and if statues 250 year old have historical value then I believe the correct answer is 'belongs in museum' and not 'destroy with sledgehammer'.

sounds ok

 

[Kinyou]

Some history for y'all

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswi...us-sailed-into-u-s-history-thanks-to-italians

Columbus was pushed as a bridge to lessen anti-Italian discrimination back when Italian Immigrants we're being attacked as the others.

Apparently it worked and the reconstructed symbol this day is taught in just about every public school - completely divorced from the history.

Honestly, as an Italian American I'm not sweating Columbus statues coming down. But I do think there's a HUGE learning experience in the reason they went up in the first place that no one seems to want to talk about.

It's the same story over and over as far as finding an "other" to vilify and distract.

That's a pretty interesting. If Columbus statues/day goes it should probably be replaced with someone or something else to celebrate Italian heritage.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

Vandalism is wrong, sorry it's wrong, and I'm not hoping on any bandwagon that's endorsing this.

If the city council doesn't want to take this down; we vote for people who will take these down. We are too intelligent and educated to validate vandalism.

History is one fucked up animal.

 

[A Link to the Past]

As I wrote, there are numerous monuments of viking kings in Denmark. There are also viking museums museums, lots of followers who dress and act like viking and summer camps, where you and your kids can live like a viking.

As we all know, vikings in general were ruthless, slave-traders and what have you. If we are to follow the examples given, we should tear them all down and close anything like that. It makes no sense. It's not exactly a secret that Columbus was a dick. But he was a product of his time, and quite frankly, I'm really surprised that people are a-okay with statue-busting of historical figures.

Do you take issue with the fact that no Nazi monuments exist in Germany?

 

[TyrantII]

That's a pretty interesting. If Columbus day goes it should probably be replaced with someone or something else to celebrate Italian heritage.

Immigration Day is fine, but we also need a federal Native People's day all for their own.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Do you take issue with the fact that no Nazi monuments exist in Germany?

If 150 years from now, someone moved a nazi monument from their basement to the street, the response should not be destroy it, but have historians look at it and if useful put in a museum or storage.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

I'm surprised that I'm even surprised about others being surprised about ideologues attacking figures, statues and artefacts they deem 'inappropriate' regardless of the degree of severity, popularity or origin.

I'm not talking about Nazi Book Burning™ I'm talking about a time people destroyed things they didn't agree with.

Did you scare those crows away?

You're the one who innvoked that imagery, that's some intellectually dishonest and subversive trash. I'm not here for this slippery slope concern trolling nonsense. Who here actually believes that Christopher Columbus should be venerated? Show me someone and I'll show you a racist who has no regard for indigenous people/poc. Making a monument to for columbus is incongruous with the ideals that this country purports itself to believe in.

 

[gutter_trash]

This is very easily explained and one of the reasons it bothers me that people handwave destruction of a monument like this.

The holiday itself was actually adopted during a period when Italian-Americans were facing heavy discrimination. I belive it actually officially started a year after something like 20 Italians were lynched somewhere in the south.

His legacy was basically embellished and he was turned into hero for America in an attempt to build common ground between the new wave of immigrants and the local populations.

A lot of that is from memory from a college class dealing with minorities in America so I may have some details wrong.

Italy waa not unified until the 19th Century.

Columbus was from Genoa.

The whole Italian-American Pride angle is a fabrication.

 

[entremet]

Messed up. Columbus was a monster most definitely and I'm fine with ending the national holiday, but not like this.

 

[TBiddy]

Do you take issue with the fact that no Nazi monuments exist in Germany?

Do you honestly think that the declaration made by the allied powers shortly after the war to destroy all nazi monuments (not all, but most anyways - there are still traces of some in Berlin), compares to petty vandalism of a 250 year old statue of a historical person that lived 500 years ago?

As someone wrote above - if we in 200 years find a statue of Hitler, Stalin or whomever, I'd hope the people of that time are wise enough not to destroy it.

 

[MrPressStart]

As I wrote, there are numerous monuments of viking kings in Denmark. There are also viking museums museums, lots of followers who dress and act like viking and summer camps, where you and your kids can live like a viking.

As we all know, vikings in general were ruthless, slave-traders and what have you. If we are to follow the examples given, we should tear them all down and close anything like that. It makes no sense. It's not exactly a secret that Columbus was a dick. But he was a product of his time, and quite frankly, I'm really surprised that people are a-okay with statue-busting of historical figures.

I agree with this. The logic seems to be that if anybody is offended then its an issue. Slavery was an awful thing. However our planet (like it or not) was built on slavery. Pyramids were built (recently discovered) by ancient building like companies and I would put money on the fact that those builders used slaves.
I think the practice is demeaning and uncalled for, but at that time it was what it was.

 

[TyrantII]

The whole Italian-American Pride angle is a fabrication.

As an Italian-American, I can say you're wrong.

This wasn't about Italy. It was about people here and about America.