Don’t change name of Columbus Magnet School

An open letter to the parents of Columbus Magnet School students:

Please leave the name alone, and instead make Columbus Magnet School a shining example of how to take responsibility for fixing what is wrong, at the root. The recent commotion about re-naming anything called Columbus prompts a question: What does this teach our children? That Columbus is not a hero, instead a “bad guy” — therefore something to be ashamed of? That when we face something unpleasant, we can fix it by simply “disappearing” it?

Removing the name Columbus may assuage our personal discomfort or shame, but cannot ease the real pain of those we have harmed. It may even get in the way of progress; by changing into a fresh outfit, we may be burnishing our own sense of fairness when we really have not changed the person wearing it. We see it as an important gesture, but it is just a gesture.

We cannot revise the historical fact that European nation-states in a period of marine exploration produced the voyage of Columbus, which is connected to exterminating indigenous culture, which is connected to the African slave trade, and … everything since. But also, uniquely, it has produced us. Are we then to despise Spain? France? The Catholic Church?

Eighty-some years ago, with the best intentions, Norwalk named a school for Columbus, but it is only a name — not the school itself. Rather than denigrate Cristofero Colon (probably not his real name, by the way), we parents have choices — we have ways to re-direct this entirely appropriate rage — by instead honoring the great gifts to us from peoples of color whom we enslaved, massacred, and persecuted. We did that. (Not Columbus.)

And are we really done with learning who Columbus was, anyway? An excerpt I’d like to share from her larger and much richer statement: (find it at collegefund.org, ) “Today our hearts are breaking, but we look forward. We believe in real change through dialogue, reform, and education.” — Cheryl Crazy Bull, Wacinyanpi Win (They Depend on Her), President and CEO, American Indian College Fund. Joan Peterdi

Norwalk