Should Americans celebrate Christopher Columbus?

“History shows Christopher Columbus is worth celebrating,” Silvio Laccetti column.

Silvio Laccetti falsely called Christopher Columbus “a great explorer, an intrepid adventurer ...” whose “admirable traits allowed him to rise above his human imperfections.” That’s mythology, not history. Columbus was a brutal, narcissistic charlatan who began one of the worst genocides in world history, reducing the population of Hispaniola from about 2 million to a few thousand in one decade. According to contemporary accounts, Columbus’ “intrepid” Spaniards hacked locals to pieces, burned them alive, set trained dogs on them to tear them to pieces, and ripped infants from their mothers’ breasts before dashing them headlong against the rocks. Beside the fact that you can’t “discover” an already-inhabited land, and that other Europeans had already visited North America, ponder this: in four voyages, the “great explorer” never found the continental U.S. Using Columbus to celebrate Italian-American pride is like German-Americans celebrating Hitler Day. Find a better symbol. ●●●

Columbus Day was never intended to simply honor Christopher Columbus. Instead, as stated in the official Senate committee report of June 21, 1968, making the day a national holiday, “[T]he observation of Columbus Day is an appropriate means of recognizing the United States as a ‘nation of immigrants’ ... . By commemorating the voyage of Columbus to the New World, we would be honoring the courage and determination which enabled generation after generation of immigrants from every nation to broaden their horizons in search of new hopes and a renewed affirmation of freedom.” Sadly, a day intended to unify Americans has been hijacked by controversies surrounding its namesake.