Saturday, October 17, 2009

Do I want to Speak on Columbus Day...let me think about it!

First I want to personally thank Glenn Singleton and the staff at Pacific Educational Group for organizing once again an amazing Summit for Courageous Conversations in Baltimore. The feeling you get attending such an event with 500+ people passionate about anti- racism is, for lack of a better word, overwhelming. I was excited enough to be presenting my Historical time line workshop, on Columbus Day... in the US, and sharing the truth about terrorists like Columbus and Cornwallis to 25 or so people. However, on Monday, the day of the national celebrations of a glorified boat captain (I do not use the word explorer to describe these men. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Alrdrin are explorers, the others more like tourists visiting a place where someone already was/is), I was asked to speak to the entire conference for a couple minutes about Columbus. Talk about a dream come true...but only a couple minutes? Sure that is all this history deserves in a classroom, in the curriculum, but 2 minutes to to undo 517 years of lies...hmmm... I got it let's focus on present day

Here is a copy of what I said:

Columbus, South Carolina
Columbus, Missouri
Columbus, Indiana
Columbus, Wisconsin
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus State University...in Columbus, Georgia
Washington, D.C.
There is actually a statue of Christopher Columbus right here in Baltimore on the Inner Harbour, next to Christoper Columbus Building. Yesterday there was a parade through this very city to celebrate Columbus. Now I am one who loves geography, so I got out my maps and looked:
Hitler, Montana
Hitler, Arizona
Miloshevich, Kansas
Aldof Consolidated School
I could not find any of these places. If we are ok to name places after one person who committed genocide, why not others?

I would like to read you a few statements from the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948:

Article 1
The contracting parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace on in time of war, is a crime under international law.

Article 2
In the present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such:

  1. killing members of the group
  2. causing severe bodily or mental harm to members of the group
  3. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
  4. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
  5. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Were Canada and the US guilty of genocide? In Canada, First Nation children were forcibly taken, sometimes by gunpoint by the police, from their homes and sent to Residential Schools, in order for them to learn how to assimilate into a society that did not want them there in the first place. If they made it through alive, which many thousands did not, where could they go? Home? No, they no longer spoke the language or knew their culture. Into the dominant society? No, they were still not wanted there. The destruction is still being felt, generations later. Our students are disengaged from school at grade 3 and dropping out on average at grade 9. Many generations destroyed by one act. I ask you, where did this start and when will it end? Our Prime Minister, this year, stood up in the House of Commons, actuallystood up and issued an apology for the treatment of children at the Residential Schools, which was the first time in our history a group representing First Nations was allowed on the floor of the House of Commons...FIRST TIME. However, just a couple weeks ago, this same Prime Minister actually stood on the floor on the United Nations and said (Canada)"...we have no history of Colonialism" I guess that apology was nothing more that words.
As we observe Columbus Day today, I ask you, when did this genocide start, should it be celebrated, and when will it end? Thank you


I did not have enough time to finish my thoughts, so here it goes. This convention was written in 1948, after WWII. That year there were 72 residential schools open in Canada. The last federally run residential school officially closed its doors in 1996. Should Canada be held accountable for this genocide? Today, in 2009, Canada and the US still practice genocide through our biased judicial systems. A disproportionate number of Black, Latino, First Nation, men and women are being incarcerated as compared to Whites. For identical crimes, the first group is more likely to receive higher sentences, at higher security levels, for no other reason, except for the colour of their skin. In many of these cases, in relations to drugs, you will see the first group sentenced to federal time, while the second group is given a chance at rehab. Now, what happens when these folks have kids? The province/state steps in, removes the kids and puts them where? Many, many times, they are completely removed from their own cultural and racial identity., please see Article 2(5) above

1 comment:

  1. you don't appear to be right in the head. Your comparing actions of five hundred years ago to modern definitions. That's like saying the Neanderthal was stupid because he didn't have a cell phone. Get out of your ivory tower and join the real world

    ReplyDelete