Added: Dec 3, 2008

From: pazyamor07

Duration: 1:1

Celebrating Columbus Day, especially burdening children with the duty of this celebration primarily, and the sanctioning of such a celebration by any public entity is a manifest continuation of institutionalized racism, which causes resentment and hostility between ethnic groups and imposes a sense of self-degradation and internalized oppression - the stigma of inferiority, which has shown to have a detrimental impact on the psyche of children in past experiments - on indigenous people in the United States. There is no doubt of the direct link between the psychological impact of this imposed stigma of inferiority and the disparities in wealth, welfare, health, and achievement of native peoples. The official recognition of Columbus Day is no different, in fact it is by definition, the denial of experiences, history, identity, and image to indigenous people. Tying the duty of this celebration to an ethnic heritage such as Italian American imposes a world view on this group that pits them against those who walked the very same path as they did in their struggle against oppression. Columbus Day is a divisive and destructive tradition that causes unjustifiable conflict, discrimination, resentment and animosity between groups who are not on opposite sides of any line in reality. It is a tool of racial oppression that should have died out with Jim Crow, segregation, and slavery. The civil rights movement did not bring with it "excesses," rather it is quite the contrary. The movement is not over, has not fully succeeded, and if we give up now we will turn back time to those bloody toiling years of pain and misery we all - Italians, Jews, Africans, Natives, Mestizos, Catholics etc. - have struggled for centuries to overcome. The next step we must take as a people in the United States towards ending the long and bloody legacy of racism and inequality is the abolition of all icons and legacies that deny entire groups based on their ethnic/racial heritage their right to control their own history, their own identity, and their own destiny. Abolish Columbus Day Now!

Channel: Nonprofit

Tags: announcements  federal  government  grassroo  local  nonprofit  public  regional  service  state 

Rating: ( ratings)    Views: 22    Comments: 0