Erase Columbus? Why Not Lewis And Clark Too?
Like many Italian Americans I recognize Columbus Day as a way to take pride in my Italian heritage.
Unfortunately, once again this year there are those would like to take Montana in the direction of other states like Hawaii, Oregon and South Dakota, in the elimination of Columbus Day.
Those voices, including the usual state legislators and apparently everyone who works for the Great Falls Tribune, seem willfully ignorant of a couple of important facts.
First, Columbus never set one foot in what we now call America.
Secondly, history is replete with examples of indigenous peoples in America conquering and taking neighboring tribes as slaves, stealing their land, brutalizing and raping women, engaging in human sacrifice and torture as well as committing atrocities including acts of cannibalism.
All of this before any Europeans even knew the New World existed. So, as Zachary Mettler points out is his excellent article, “The Left Hates Christopher Columbus. Here are Five Reasons Why We Should Still Celebrate Columbus Day”, if Columbus is off limits to celebrate, so are indigenous peoples.
No racial or ethnic group is pure and innocent when it comes to treating fellow human beings badly. Those who constantly single out white Europeans as monsters while ignoring the atrocities committed by other groups and individuals do so mostly for selfish political reasons.
Their hypocrisy is clear to anyone interested in the facts.
So I would ask the local Great Falls finger pointers and virtue signalers, like those at the Great Falls Tribune who make money on the Lewis and Clark advertising brand, how they feel about the fact that Clark himself held slaves and the Corps of Discovery helped open up the West to American expansion and the “exploitation” of indigenous peoples?
Where are the calls to eliminate the statues of Lewis and Clark in and around Great Falls?
Where are the demands to get rid of any mention of Lewis and Clark in our local celebrations or in the naming of local restaurants and other businesses and tourist sites?
Please, be consistent or be quiet.
Philip Faccenda – Proud First Generation Italian American
