Over on my official writer/storyteller page on Facebook (http://facebook.com/bardscloak) I have this thing I do every once in a while I call a "Daily Rant." The "daily" part of that is a misnomer, as they don't come every day; however, the "rant" portion of the title is pretty much 100% accurate. I post one whenever I see or experience some portion of the human behavior that pisses me off to the point I need to rant and rave over it. I decided to post them here, so everyone on all my social media can enjoy them.
I can't wait to see the flack I get for this one!
It's Columbus Day. Can we please chill the ever-loving hell out? Oh wait...it's the internet, and something's going on...of course we have to give something grief. Isn't that like one of the first requirements to even be considered for the troll of the month club?
Here are some of my personal favorite posts I've read on the internet about today's holiday:
"Columbus was a fucking idiot...the faggot couldn't even find China."
"Is celebrating Columbus Day in America like celebrating George W. Bush Day in Iraq?"
"My kids asked me to explain Columbus Day so I went in their room, told them now it was mine, ruined their stuff and threw them outside."
"The moral of Columbus Day is if you're looking for gold kill everything that gets in your way."
"Columbus as an inner-city youth: 'Well, your honor... I was out exploring the fire escape when I discovered this elderly couple's apartment. So I planted a flag in their living room and all their belongings became mine. When they returned they acted like a couple of savages, so I had to shoot them.'"
Now, I'm not going to go into an in-depth discussion about the historical accuracy of any of these claims. It's been so long, and so much distortion has taken place over centuries, that making any claims to Mr. Columbus's character or true motivations is pretty pointless, aside from the fact that he was trying to find a new trade route to Asia. That's it.
As for all the crappy stuff that's happened in North and South America in the last 500+ years...well, I'm pretty sure home boy has been dead for most of it. In fact, I'd put a healthy amount of money on it. Any takers? And really...if you have even a drop of European genetics floating around in your body, and you live ANYWHERE in the Western Hemispere... SHUT THE HELL UP! You have no room to say a goddamn thing! Because, here's a secret: You're living pretty off the exploits of one Mr. Christopher Columbus.
With everything going on in the world, you seriously have nothing better to bitch about? With all the screwed up things humanity has done to each other over the years, that's what you have to complain about. Oh...wait...it's about it being a holiday where some dude did something bad to a bunch of other dudes...and now we gotta get on our moral high horse about it. Cool...I supposed I can get behind that...but wait...then why aren't people on their moral high horses about St. Patrick's day? Talk about a first rate bastard. That homeboy went to Ireland specifically to wipe out the indigenous religion of Ireland... Oh, wait... I guess it's okay when one white dude does it to other white dudes.
I could go on, and on, and on... Pretty much any holiday has something that we can poke at in it's history, except for those ones we make up just for fun, like last month when we had International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Because, we all know pirates were all like lovable Jack Sparrow and Will Turner.... No really!
The point is, maybe exercise some critical thinking skills and understand that just because a lot of craptastic stuff happened because of Columbus, a lot of cool stuff did too, but the man himself probably didn't do or even plan any of the stuff people are giving him flack over today. If you want to rant and bitch about something, there's a lot more going on in the world that's actually relevant to our lives that we actually have a shot in hell at affecting the outcome over. But then, I guess if people started bitching about those, someone might come along as say, "Well, if that pisses you off so much, why don't you do something about it." I guess Columbus is a safe target, and award for troll of the month is still up for grabs.
Right on, man. I'm tired of anti-west sentiment in the freaking west. Have some respect, people. Any other explorer/nation on earth would have done the same damn thing Columbus did back then. Remember the Mongols, and their blitzkrieg into Christian territory? What if the Aztecs had Spain's level of technology? Think they'd head over to Europe and give a peaceful wave? No! They'd start taking people back to their temples and freaking sacrifice them to their gods.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit silly to credit Columbus with the discovery of America, since plenty of people knew of its existence beforehand, but he isn't someone who deserves all the hate. People need to look at history with a wider lens, and stop selectively bitching at the parts they don't like.
"critical thinking skills"
ReplyDeleteCould we have more of that, please? Maybe we could spread it on the crackers at holiday parties and try to infect the population with it. If it's catching, we could see a whole new world by this time next year.