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We Should Abolish Columbus Day

In: English and Literature

Submitted By Nichole1114
Words 1389
Pages 6
Nichole Oliver
Professor Scott
ENG-ENF 3/III
April 23, 2016

We Should Abolish Columbus Day Only two federal holidays in the United States bear the name of two specific men, ironically one of them fought racism -- Martin Luther King Jr., and the other was a genocidal racist – Chistopher Columbus. Opposition to Columbus Day (observed on the second Monday of October) has intensified in recent decades, while the former passes each year with relatively little controversy. The issue of if we should still celebrate Columbus Day is widely discussed. The topic remains important because it concerns fundamental moral and economic questions related to the origin of how Christopher Columbus got his recognition. In my essay I will touch on the ongoing debate of if we should erase Columbus Day as one of our federal holidays. As our young minds are still developing and processing information of our history, which hopefully holds an importance to the American citizens of this great nation, there is a poem taught to children about our history. How does the saying go? Ah, yes! In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue… We are taught that Columbus is viewed a valiant adventurer that opened up the worlds eyes by discovering the Americas; on the contrary, he is perceived a symbol of slavery and genocide. His trip to America is often claimed as a voyage of bravery in his attempts to discover new lands and did however lead to the permanent colonization, settlement, political and economic expansion of the lands of the Americas by Spain, then Portugal, and finally the European nations. It really boils down to the import of the discovery in socio-political world affairs, which is huge in Columbus’s case. In many senses it was, but it was not the first trip to the Americas nor even the first European expedition. Historians, archeologists, anthropologists and other

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