Community Chat

[bathina]

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@esmerelda wrote:

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@bathina wrote:

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@esmerelda wrote:

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@bathina wrote:

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@esmerelda wrote:

@Cakers3 Speaking of Vikings, how did they treat the people they found here?

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Why? Do we celebrate Viking Day in this country?

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@bathinaSo that's the criteria that determines if someone is good or bad...whether there is a day on which we celebrate them?  Are you saying Columbus' treatment of the people would be okay if we didn't celebrate Columbus Day?

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I'm saying we don't celebrate murderers, slavers and rapists who have wiped out 50% of an indigenous population as heroes. What happened, happened. We can't change it. It wasn't right, but brutality was the m.o. during that time. We can avoid lionizing that brutality by declaring holidays or erecting statues in their names. When we know better, we do better.

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@bathinaSome say there are days set aside and statues erected to slavers and murderers.  Does the "when we know better, we do better" apply to them?  Do we apply the "m.o. during that time" to them?  Or do we condemn them for being men of their time and try to erase all evidence of them?

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Please see my post to @beckyb1012. Perhaps that will help you understand how statues and holidays impact people who have been harmed by those being touted as "heroes". 

[Cakers3]

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@cherry wrote:

We must remember that Native people were also very brutal toward their own people, as well. They believed in human sacrifice . The Aztecs tore the heart out of a living human  victicm

A beautiful Indian maid was sent over Niagara Falls in a canoe laden with food as a  living sacrifice.

We are living in an age on enlightenment( sometimes), and  we understand this was a different time. People in general ,were quite brutal to each other, back then..The had  public executions , and people went for entertainment . A lot of things that were done  legally back then, by everyone ,gives me the shivers..But, there were also people who were good and kind too..the Geneva Convention ,was fashioned on St Augstine's just war theory. This theory was an attempt to  try to limit  what could be done to others  during wars.  It made many  savage  type things illegal in an attempt to create a more humane,and just society. It tried to limit  how much  you were able to wound an enemy.

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@cherry  Agree that earlier cultures are looked at as brutal, such as the Aztecs you mentioned.

However, the Aztec people were taken over by the Spaniards in Spain's quest for more domination after conquoring the Carribean.  Although records indicate that they were not enslaved they were subject to forced labor, denied of their spiritual belief system.

Not much difference.   The settlement of the Nahuatl peoples (7 tribes if my memory is correct) developed farming techniques and various architectual projects.  Spread throughout our SW, Mexico, Yucatan Peninsula, Central America, and farther south these native peoples were not all about the hearts, which seems to be what people focus on.

The wars between native peoples for city domination back then are documented, but so are the wars with the Spaniards.

We still have Aztec and other native groups in our country with schools and determination to preserve their heritages, and I am glad.  Also sure hearts are not being ripped out.

But we still have female circumcision, violation of human rights in the name of any God du jour,  killing for the sake of ignorance and hate, and the list goes on.

We may be horrifid by early native customs but certain horrific things still happen today.

My point, after this long-winded post, is that barbaric practices by native peoples of long ago do not justify nor negate what happened when settlers began to explore and dominate said natives.

[Cakers3]

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@esmerelda wrote:

@Cakers3 Speaking of Vikings, how did they treat the people they found here?

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@esmereldaI'm not your history teacher but Leif Ericson's brother was killed by the natives here.   How much brutality the Vikings inflicted upon the native and vice versa can easily be found online.

However, peace treaties were made between natives and the Norsemen, and trade flourished between the two groups.

[Cakers3]

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@bathina wrote:

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@esmerelda wrote:

@Cakers3 Speaking of Vikings, how did they treat the people they found here?

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Why? Do we celebrate Viking Day in this country?

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@bathina  I'd put on a brass bra for him.

[bathina]

@Cakers3 LOLOLOL! Now THAT is a mighty fine Norseman

[dex]

@Cakers3i don’t really see the difference.The past was barbaric no matter how you look at it.All sides seem to be guilty of that.

[Sooner]

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@SilleeMee wrote:

And we all know he did not 'discover' America at all. That part of history is wrong.

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@SilleeMee  A lot of what we learned is apparently wrong.  Some of us walked over the land bridge from Asia to Alaska and migrated down; some came in boats; some in planes.  Who knows what else?   As I understand it, all of our ancestors came to this continent from somewhere else. 

[Laura14]

As a working person, I vote to leave our holidays alone.  Otherwise, I'll have none and I like my paid time off.  

If we all got nuts about every little thing....

New Year's encourages drinking and other types of uncivil celebrations plus it's past most of our bedtimes which leads to drowsy and drunk driving so everyone just have a private moment alone with your calendar and flip it so we all stay alive on the roads.  

MLK had alleged mistresses which means don't even talk about President's Day and the history of some of our founding fathers.  Another two holidays gone.

Memorial Day glorifies war and you can probably lump in Veteran's Day with the same alleged atrocities commited by the US government against other sovereign nations.  Throw in Independence Day which also celebrates a war and war heroes and we just can't have that kind of celebration of violence.  

That leaves us with Columbus Day and Thanksgiving which are an affront to Native Americans and we've already torn apart Christmas pretty well as non-inclusive towards other religions.

That leaves Labor Day as the sole holiday left but none of you enjoy your customer service reps so spit on them.  They don't deserve the day off!   

[SilleeMee]

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@Sooner wrote:

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@SilleeMee wrote:

And we all know he did not 'discover' America at all. That part of history is wrong.

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@SilleeMee  A lot of what we learned is apparently wrong.  Some of us walked over the land bridge from Asia to Alaska and migrated down; some came in boats; some in planes.  Who knows what else?   As I understand it, all of our ancestors came to this continent from somewhere else. 

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Yes exactly @Sooner. This place has always been a 'melting pot'  from the very start...whenever that was.

[Cakers3]

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@dex wrote:

@Cakers3i don’t really see the difference.The past was barbaric no matter how you look at it.All sides seem to be guilty of that.

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@dex  ???  Not sure to which post you refer but  my position was that yes, there is no difference in terms of human rights.  Some feel the actions of explorers such as CC are a moot issue today; they are not.  We may have learned but we haven't learned enough.  If we had, the slaughter of other natives, the use of Africans as slaves here, the murder of a child named Emmet Till, Nazis, Pol Pot, Stalin-the list goes on-would not have happened.

And yet today we still have some of the other issues going on I have already mentioned.