As of December 31st, 2015, Law Enforcement Agencies across The United Slaves States Of AmeriKKKlan has taken the lives of One Thousand One Hundred & Ninety Nine (1,199) Humans.
Justified or not.
Armed or UNARMED.
Visit the official website of “Killed By Police” to keep updated on the total number of citizens Law Enforcement Kills Yearly.
I remember, when I was in school, the topic of America’s discovery always revolved around Christopher Columbus and his three ships: La Niña, La Pinta y La Santa María. That’s the way it always went.
As I read today, I discovered that this movement to bring forth the reality of his “conquests” was almost four decades in the making.
We end the day with more information and other points of view about Columbus and his actions in this “new land”.
Christopher Columbus is known for “discovering America” and is honored for this with a national holiday and general acclaim by the American people and their government. While this is a nice narrative that countless Americans can recite, Columbus should be better known for one of his statements regarding the native populations of the places he came across, specifically that “with 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Columbus isn’t the hero that everyone makes him out to be.
First off, he didn’t “discover America”— people had already been living on that continent for ages. He wasn’t even the first traveler to come across America, as Vikings arrived in America around 1000 A.D. and there are legends of Chinese explorers and Irish monks coming to the continent earlier than Columbus.
So what exactly is Columbus’s legacy?
It is that of a slaver, murderer, and thief who was willing to do anything in order to secure glory and riches for himself.
Since 1992, Berkeley has renamed Columbus Day “Indigenous People’s Day” in support of the world’s indigenous peoples that have suffered greatly under the Europeans’ conquest of the new world.
Such incredible arts & crafts have come from these cultures, from the Native Americans, the aboriginal cultures of Australia and New Zealand, the Berbers in Morocco, and throughout the rest of the world. in honor of all of those cultures, today seemed like the perfect day to share images from the Chichicastenango Market in Guatemala. The most colorful market in the world, “chi-chi” is held on Thursdays and Sundays with vendors offering fruits, veggies, pottery, textiles and other traditional k’iche’ maya crafts.
Here’s to cultural preservation, understanding, and unity!
On August 3rd, 1492 Italian explorer Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain, to seek out a western sea route to China and India. However, the explorer and his crew never made it to the gold and spice islands of Asia. Instead, about two months later, on October 12th, they landed on a small island in the modern-day Bahamas that Columbus claimed for Spain and named San Salvador.
The arrival of the Explorer credited for ‘discovering’ the Americas has since been celebrated with religious ceremonies and parades in many U.S. States. In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared October 12th a Federal holiday and Christopher Columbus Day became afixture on the American calendar. In 1971, to enable residents to enjoy a long weekend, the holiday was moved to the second Monday of October.
However, the holiday has always been mired incontroversy.
That’s because many Americans argue that Christopher Columbus did not ‘discover’ America.
The Native Americans already lived here.
Then there is also the issue that his mission was not a scientific ‘voyage of discovery’, but one geared to conquer and colonize the lands he discovered. Critics argue that the Spanish army brought by the explorer on his second voyage was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of indigenous Americans. Those that survived were enslaved and forced to work in mines and plantations. They, therefore, believe that his arrival should not be celebrated.
It Is What It Is 