Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Jemele Hill is right about Trump. His Columbus Day proclamation is more evidence.

Jemele Hill
ESPN's Jamele Hill is right on about Trump. He is a white supremacist and proves it over and over again every day. Her suspension is nothing more than another message sent out to black women (and men) journalists and sportscasters, from the White House and corporate media boardrooms. "Don't get too uppity or speak out too loudly against racism and injustice or you will be jobless." It's the same message that's long been sent to black athletes.

But the resistance grows.

I for one, will not watch or listen to a second of ESPN until Hill is back on the job and I encourage others to do the same and let it be known.

Claiming the "new world" for God and Spain
More evidence that Trump is a white supremacist... His proclamation that Oct. 9, 2017 is "Columbus Day". Since DT issued the proclamation with no congressional approval, and years after the verdict on Columbus had been reversed by historians and educators, he takes full ownership of it's racist content.

Trump demonstrates his white blindspot and offers his Eurocentric version of history:
The permanent arrival of Europeans to the Americas was a transformative event that undeniably and fundamentally changed the course of human history and set the stage for the development of our great Nation.  
Then come this bit of fake news:
 More than five centuries after his initial voyage, we remember the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" for building the critical first link in the strong and enduring bond between the United States and Europe.
Of course, 500 years ago, there was no such thing as entity as Europe, nor the United States. Europe officially became Europe in 1842. Italy actually became Italy 20 years later. So, it's really a stretch to call CC an Italian or a representative of Europe building links to the U.S. Rather, he was a citizen of Genoa who sold his services to the Spanish royalty and set out to explore and plunder the land he thought was India.

Here it is in his own words:
These Natives are so nice, we’d be crazy not to enslave them! This excerpt from Columbus’ diary describes the Arawak people who greeted him and his men:
They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… . They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.
The history of his brutality towards the indigenous people he "discovered" did indeed "change the course of history". But unfortunately, it set the stage for the wave of colonialism, the slave trade and genocides that would come to characterize European intervention in the "new world". Not a change we should be celebrating.

Jemele Hill is right.

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