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Christopher Columbus monument vandalized in Baltimore

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ponpo

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Baltimore Sun
A monument in Baltimore to Christopher Columbus — believed to be the first one erected to the Italian explorer in America — was vandalized.

Baltimore Police said they were looking into the incident, but couldn’t say when the damage took place.
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A video posted to YouTube on Monday by a user named “Popular Resistance” shows a man striking the base of the monument near Herring Run Park repeatedly with a sledgehammer. Another person holds a sign that reads: “Racism, tear it down.” Another sign is taped to the monument reading: “The future is racial and economic justice.”

Police are searching for information about the men in the video, as well as whoever filmed it.
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“We want to inform people it is a crime to destroy property. And if the person is identified who is responsible for this, they will be prosecuted,” said police spokesman T.J. Smith.

The narrator of the video, who says his name is Ty, calls Christopher Columbus a “genocidal terrorist.”

The monument, which features a two-story-tall obelisk atop a base, was still standing on Monday morning, but there was a gaping hole in the front and chunks of stone were scattered in the grass. The signs seen in the video were lying on the ground.
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The celebration of Columbus’ exploits in the Americas has long been criticized by those who feel the Italian explorer’s misdeeds are too often glossed over. Many associate Columbus, who is often falsely credited with “discovering” what is now the United States, with enslaving, brutalizing and killing the native people he encountered in his travels.

Columbus statues and monuments have been defaced and damaged over the years, as more people learn about Columbus’ deadly legacy.

“This is happening everywhere,” said Kevin Caira, president of the Sons of Italy’s Commission for Social Justice. Over the weekend, a Columbus statue in Boston was painted red and a protest was held at a statue in Detroit, he said.
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The obelisk at Herring Run is believed to be the first monument in the country to honor Columbus, erected in 1792 by Frenchman Chevalier d’Anemours. The obelisk was on his estate at what is now the intersection of Harford Road and North Avenue, currently the site of the Eastside District Court building.

The Columbus obelisk was moved to its current location on Harford Road near Parkside Drive in 1963, according to newspaper accounts. A plaque indicates it was re-dedicated by then Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin in 1964.

For a time, some believed that the obelisk honored not the Italian explorer, but rather a horse of the same name, according to historical newspaper accounts.
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And the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFSW0id36FA
 
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perfectchaos007

Member
Huh, I guess I just assumed only slave owners/confederate statues were being taken down. Now we're taking down statues of any and all oppressors? If there's a John Smith statue they definitely need to take that one down too. John Smith was as asshole to the natives and had sex with underage girls like Pocohantas
 
M

massoluk

Banned
I think this one warranted a move to the museum, not outright destruction. It was erected out of popular ignorance, not racism.
 
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blitzwolf215

Member
Christoph Columbus shouldn't be idolized. Remove his statues too. Will be funny though if Trump tries to defend him by saying he discovered America.
 
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ponpo

( ≖‿≖)
perfectchaos007 said:
Huh, I guess I just assumed only slave owners/confederate statues were being taken down. Now we're taking down statues of any and all oppressors? If there's a John Smith statue they definitely need to take that one down too. John Smith was as asshole to the natives and had sex with underage girls like Pocohantas
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Well to be fair the article states

Columbus statues and monuments have been defaced and damaged over the years, as more people learn about Columbus' deadly legacy.

Probably just slightly more newsworthy because of recent stuff.

massoluk said:
I think this one warranted a move to the museum, not outright destruction. It was erected out of popular ignorance, not racism.
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This story needs more investigation:

For a time, some believed that the obelisk honored not the Italian explorer, but rather a horse of the same name, according to historical newspaper accounts.
 
P

perfectchaos007

Member
Columbus day is still a national holiday fam. what should we do about this?

blitzwolf215 said:
Christoph Columbus shouldn't be idolized. Remove his statues too. Will be funny though if Trump tries to defend him by saying he discovered America.
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To be fair, thats what every grade school teacher in america taught back in my day. Its not until you get to US history in Highschool where teachers tell us the horrible truth we weren't prepared to hear as children.
 
P

ponpo

( ≖‿≖)
perfectchaos007 said:
Columbus day is still a national holiday fam. what should we do about this?
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Also from the article:

The Columbus Day holiday also has been a casualty of increased knowledge about the Italian explorer. The Baltimore City Council last year considered renaming Columbus Day, celebrated in October, as “Indigenous Peoples’ and Italian-Americans’ Day.” The bill, which was introduced at the behest of students, failed.

In recent decades, a number of American cities have moved to change the Columbus Day holiday. Albuquerque, N.M., Portland, Ore., and St. Paul, Minn. are among those who dropped Columbus in favor of an Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The state of Vermont added an Indigenous Peoples’ day last fall.
 
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nelsonroyale

Member
I'm okay with this. History is what it is, but it doesn't mean we don't need to reappraise those who shaped it, and accept the ambiguity of what they did. Many of the explorers, such as Vasco de gama did some incredibly fucked up things. We shouldn't celebrate them. We have what we have, but we should want to do things differently...better.
 
S

StopMakingSense

Member
BudokaiMR2 said:
I am 100% behind the legal removal of the bullshit Jim Crow-era Confederate statutes, but this feels a bit too extreme.
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The 48-page report, found in 2006 in the state archive in the Spanish city of Valladolid, contains testimonies from 23 people, including both enemies and supporters of Columbus, about the treatment of colonial subjects by Columbus and his brothers during his seven-year rule.[84]

According to the report, Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. Testimony recorded in the report claims that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomeo on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was of lowly birth.[84] The document also describes how Columbus put down native unrest and revolt; he first ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed and then paraded their dismembered bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion.[85] "Columbus's government was characterised by a form of tyranny," Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told journalists.[84] "Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."[84]
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His rule of Hispaniola was too monstrous for Spain.
 
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RumblingRosco

Member
ponpo said:
Also from the article:

The Columbus Day holiday also has been a casualty of increased knowledge about the Italian explorer. The Baltimore City Council last year considered renaming Columbus Day, celebrated in October, as “Indigenous Peoples’ and Italian-Americans’ Day.” The bill, which was introduced at the behest of students, failed.

In recent decades, a number of American cities have moved to change the Columbus Day holiday. Albuquerque, N.M., Portland, Ore., and St. Paul, Minn. are among those who dropped Columbus in favor of an Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The state of Vermont added an Indigenous Peoples’ day last fall.
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My old school district changed the Columbus Day holiday/day-off to Fall Day. They did this in the early 2000s. It felt stupid at the time as I was a kid without much understanding, but looking back, it's a great decision and was very forward-thinking.
 
P

Psychoward

Banned
The "kids aren't prepared for the truth" shit doesn't really hold up to any scrutiny. Yeah you don't have to go in to detail about what he did but you also don't have to glorify or even acknowledge him either at that age.
 
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perfectchaos007

Member
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
Just to be clear

You also learned *why* he's hated, right?

How was he talented or brilliant? His entire fame is the result of him being incredibly wrong twice.
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What blows my mind, is Columbus thought he did land in India, so naturally he called the natives....Indians. And it wasn't until about 15 years ago that most Americans still referred to Native Americans as Indians. We still even have a baseball team called the Cleveland Indians!!
 
U

ultratruman

Banned
BudokaiMR2 said:
I am 100% behind the legal removal of the bullshit Jim Crow-era Confederate statutes, but this feels a bit too extreme.
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Doesn't matter what their importance to History is, monuments about historical figures that are not 100% clean of any association with past injustice need to be physically destroyed. Because my feelings cannot handle it.
 
W

WhiteRabbitEXE

Member
BudokaiMR2 said:
I am 100% behind the legal removal of the bullshit Jim Crow-era Confederate statutes, but this feels a bit too extreme.
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If you mean vandalism, debatable, but I won't push that argument.

If you mean removing Columbus statues in general, then no, it's absolutely not. He was a genocidal maniac, and absolutely nothing he was praised for is actually true.
 
Acidote

Acidote

Member
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
How was he talented or brilliant? His entire fame is the result of him being incredibly wrong twice.
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Because he was "wrong". I don't know if he was talented or brilliant, but he apparently arrived where he actually wanted to arrive. He didn't "discover" America by mistake trying to find a faster route to India. He wanted to reach America.
 
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Rice-Eater

Member
I learned about Columbus in early 90's when I was in Elementary school. It was all about him discovering America and nothing else. So as a kid I kind of thought of Columbus as a hero. And I say hero as in someone that should be looked up to because he did something really great. I even remember watching a episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks in which Alvin played Columbus and was arguing that the Earth was round and that he could get to the other side or something like that. That would further raise his status as some heroic figure in my eyes.

Then a few years ago I read something on GAF about how he committed so many horrible atrocities against the Natives that they met. I had to find out more because I never knew about any of these things. Along the way I also came across this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYTXRDtYzYc

So yeah, FUCK CHRISTOPER COLUMBUS
 
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BudokaiMR2

Member
StopMakingSense said:
.
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I know all of the evil he did, but I don't really see what is accomplished in this sort of vandalism. It seems short-sighted and ineffective to me.

A sculptor back in the 1700s put his blood and sweat into that statue. I don't really see the harm in leaving it up. At least in my education, I was taught the truth behind what Colombus really did (in High school though, not when I was younger.)

WhiteRabbitEXE said:
If you mean vandalism, debatable, but I won't push that argument.

If you mean removing Columbus statues in general, then no, it's absolutely not. He was a genocidal maniac, and absolutely nothing he was praised for is actually true.
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Yes, I mean the vandalism part. I don't really agree with it being destroyed in any way though. Petition your city and get it moved to a museum where the true history could be told.
Even if he was a horrible person there are still lessons to be learned from the past and the statue was literally hundreds of years old from a time when a lot of that was not common knowledge.
I am sure it will fall on deaf ears, but I even feel it is disrespectful to the sculptor who worked on it hundreds of years ago.
I doubt he knew the truth of what Colombus did, but does that mean his work should be destroyed out of anger?

That sort of energy should be put towards something more productive as far as I am concerned.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
I don't feel that strongly about Columbus statues, because, although he was a terrible person, the statues mostly exist to celebrate Italian-Americans, not to celebrate white supremacy.

But if other people do feel quite strongly about them I can understand their perspective, I guess.
 
P

perfectchaos007

Member
Rice-Eater said:
I went learned about Columbus in early 90's when I was in Elementary school. It was all about him discovering America and nothing else. So as a kid I kind of thought of Columbus as a hero. And I say hero as in someone that should be looked up to because he did something really great.

Then a few years ago I read something on GAF about how he committed so many horrible atrocities against the Natives that they met. I had to find out more because I never knew about any of these things. Along the way I also came across this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYTXRDtYzYc

So yeah, FUCK CHRISTOPER COLUMBUS
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Yeah we were taught poems too. "Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue in 1492" I still remember that part
 
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His Majesty

Banned
The obelisk at Herring Run is believed to be the first monument in the country to honor Columbus, erected in 1792 by Frenchman Chevalier d’Anemours.
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Hope they sue the assholes who destroyed this piece of history.

You can always remove the statue from public view if too many people deem it offensive. But you don't randomly go around destroying 230 year old statues.
 
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WhiteRabbitEXE

Member
Acidote said:
Because he was "wrong". I don't know if he was talented or brilliant, but he apparently arrived where he actually wanted to arrive. He didn't "discover" America by mistake trying to find a faster route to India. He wanted to reach America.
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lol, what? No, he was trying to find the fastest route to India. And he believed he did. And his entire trek was based on a gross miscalculation of the size of the Earth. Where is this revisionism coming from?

His Majesty said:
Hope they sue the assholes who destroyed this piece of history.

You can always remove the statue from public view if too many people deem it offensive. But you don't randomly go around destroying 230 year old statues.
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Being old does not make something historical or important.
 
Acidote

Acidote

Member
Also, Christopher Columbus as monstruous as he was, he was also a product of imperialism FIVE HUNDRED years ago.
 
T

televator

Member
BudokaiMR2 said:
I know all of the evil he did, but I don't really see what is accomplished in this sort of vandalism. It seems short-sighted and ineffective to me.

A sculptor back in the 1700s put his blood and sweat into that statue. I don't really see the harm in leaving it up. At least in my education, I was taught the truth behind what Colombus really did (in High school though, not when I was younger.)
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Artisans put a lot of work into confederate statues too and we all know what they were all about. How do you feel about those being up?
 
B

Breads

Banned
Our history isn't momument based. It would probably be a net benefit to educating ourselves about the proper past to have monuments like this taken down. Horse or not.
 
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