In recent times it has become fashionable to diss Columbus Day as exhibit one in the destruction of native American culture, but the genesis of the traditional Italian American holiday goes a bit deeper.
All proving, once again, that history is more complicated than easy sound bites and memes.
I googled it so you don’t have to… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_14,_1891_New_Orleans_lynchings
Somehow the lynching of 11 Italians pales in comparison to the slaughter of thousands of Naive Americans, especially considering that Columbus never even set foot on American soil, yet we are the only country in the world to have a “Columbus Day.”
Discrimination against those of Italian descent went deeper than one event, but as I keep saying, it’s not about the body count. We don’t have to pit one group against the other to celebrate our shared heritage.
On behalf of my great-great-grandparents, Guiseppe Perri and Isabella Gabrielli, I thank you. But the true “melting pot” of American culture has always been; first the Europeans to each other, in an effort to decimate the Native Americans, then against the Irish, the Italians, always the blacks, off and on the Mexicans, and now it’s any immigrant or naturalized citizen of any foreign lineage or other-than-Christian religion, especially if their appearance is even remotely other than trump-white.
So, it’s not one group against another, it’s one group against all others. Now and historically, it’s European whites against all others, and now, having been assimilated by pigmentation alone, Italians and the Irish are now accepted as part of the this-is-mine, white-only, American coalition.
Whatever god made us creatures of free volition really screwed the pooch on that one.
Balderdash!!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_origin_of_modern_humans
A lot of pronouns and adjectives, but how does any of that disprove anything said above? This being an issue based on perception, rather than actual DNA.
Keep in mind that I don’t claim it’s ALL European whites against all others, but merely that seemingly everpresent faction that rears its head whenever ignorance is allowed a voice, no matter the issue or topic.
Personally, we have done our part to alleviate the problem by comingling my Italian blood with my wife’s Native American lineage, creating what we have come to call our Wopahoe offspring, leaving them no choice but to pay themselves any reparations proposed in the future.
There’s no such thing as race. A hundred years from now the humans will be saying “those morons in the 20th/21st century were arguing at the sky; just because humans LOOK/ACT differently doesn’t mean they ARE different…sheesh.”
A hundred years from now, nothing that is considered worthy of discussion today will be on anyone’s mind, since all humans, should they be “lucky” enough to survive the impending atmospheric cataclysm, will be too busy hunting grubs and roots from their subterranean hiding places.
As I said, it’s purely an idiotic war of perception, not DNA, so no argument here.
Well, the Italians still owe the natives for this… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mErdqTpl-mQ
Or…perhaps not.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.342.6157.409
In a hundred years all the children will look like Tiger Woods and Megan Markle.