Sicilian Culture: The News & Views: Why Does Urbana Dis Chris Columbus?

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Why Does Urbana Dis Chris?
Columbus - News Gazette, Champaign, Illinois
By Jim Dev
March 24, 2001 - - The News-Gazette Champaign, IL (Page A-4) Urbana school board President Tina Gunsalus cringes at the mention of the subject. "Do we not have more important things to talk about?" she said, a tone of resigned exasperation in her voice.
Her school board colleague, John Dimit, expressed similar sentiments. "This is a story that should be allowed to die," said Dimit. Even Laura Haber, the Urbana school board member who authored the whole fuss, is somewhat surprised that the board's decision to turn its back on Christopher Columbus generated much public interest.
"I think it's kind of interesting that there is so much comment about Urbana when Champaign's been doing it that way," she said. But the school board in Champaign actually hasn't done anything like that done recently in Urbana, where board members voted 5-2 to change the name of their annual Columbus Day Holiday to the Fall Holiday. The board took action on the holiday issue because Columbus, the adventurer credited with the discovery of the New World, was a despicable fellow.
Since then, there have been letters, both pro and con, to the editor and a grass-roots movement to celebrate the life and accomplishments of Columbus led by Champaign City Council member Tom Bruno and Urbana city employee Pat Pioletti. The two are planning an Oct. 12 Italian-American Day dinner at the Urbana Civic Center to celebrate Columbus.
Bruno, while acknowledging that he's "having fun" with the issue, said he was motivated by pride in his Italian heritage and his increasing impatience with those who believe that people who lived centuries ago and acted according to the mores of their times should be judged by modern standards.
So what, he said, if Columbus discovered territory previously unknown to Europeans and then claimed it for his sponsors in Spain. "That's what people did back then. They jabbed a flag in the ground and said, 'This is mine,'" he noted. "The notion that Europeans were the only people who did these things and that everyone else was saintly is just wrong."
That, of course, is a matter of opinion, and the Urbana school board's Columbus Day controversy is nothing new.
For years now, Columbus has been pilloried once a year as an imperialist pig who enslaved natives on the land he discovered, spread disease that killed thousands and was just, in general, not the kind of guy most people would want for a neighbor.
Any kind words about Columbus are characterized by his critics as naively symbolic of the generally loathsome nature of everything that went into the discovery of the Americas and, ultimately, the creation of the United States.
The critics, like Macalster College anthropology Professor Jack Weatherford, contend that Columbus did not discover anything, didn't prove the world was round and was little more than a thief as he "raced from one Caribbean island to the next, stealing anything of value."
And those criticisms by Weatherford pale next to his claims that Columbus enslaved natives he discovered on his adventures and "launched one of the greatest waves of genocide known in history."
What does one make of such claims about an adventurer who repeatedly risked his life and that of his crews by taking small ships out on large oceans to see just what was out there?
Michael Berliner, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, sees more than just "politically correct" antipathy toward Columbus. "The attacks on Columbus are ominous because the actual target is Western Civilization," he writes. " ... It was Columbus' discovery for Western Europe that led to the influx of ideas and people upon which this nation was founded and upon which it still rests. The opening of America brought the idea and achievements of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton and the thinkers, writers and inventors who followed."
Urbana board member Haber, who made the motion to change the school holiday's name, subscribes to the view that Columbus' arrival was mostly a disaster.
"Columbus did arrive here and enslave and kill people," she said. "It's become pretty obvious this isn't the person we should be celebrating with a holiday."
Did nothing good come out of his discovery of America? "That would be hard to say," she said. "I'm not saying Europe coming to the new world was entirely disastrous for everybody. ... For Europe, it was a good thing. For the people who were here, it wasn't a good thing."
Haber did say she has no objection to the celebration dinner Bruno and Pioletti are planning, and that she has no animosity to Italian- Americans. But she suggested they could find better role models elsewhere.
"I guess perhaps they should look to other heroes," Haber said. "The school district needs to look to other heroes." That's not a view to which Dimit subscribes. Along with Joyce Hudon, Dimit voted against Haber's motion to oust Columbus from Urbana schools. Voting in favor were Haber, Gunsalus, Ruth Fisher, Mark Netter and Steve Summers.
"I just don't buy into the fact that he needs to be denigrated. I'm not politically correct on this one," said Dimit, who indicated he's looking forward to attending the Columbus Day dinner at the civic center.
Gunsalus explained her vote by saying it adds "symmetry" to the school calendar because the school district celebrates a Spring Holiday instead of what's traditionally been Good Friday.
"I don't think anybody means any harm here," she said, somewhat sheepishly. "The Urbana school board was not attacking Western Civilization." But that's not how some people see it. So Bruno and company are moving ahead and asking "the help of anyone who wants to come forward." "It was the straw that broke the camel's back," he said, while carefully noting that "I don't want to be insulting to Arabs by bringing camels into this."
Meanwhile, over in Champaign, school officials there enjoy being out of the limelight and quickly deny any suggestions they have ousted Columbus from their schools.
"It's never been an issue with us," said Superintendent Mike Cain. For the record, Columbus Day is not a holiday in Champaign. The school district has a waiver from the state to eliminate Columbus Day as a holiday and created a Fall Holiday to accommodate students and teachers who celebrate Yom Kippur. This year, the Fall Holiday in Champaign will be September 27, but school also will be dismissed on Columbus Day because of a teachers' institute.
Jim Dey is a member of The News-Gazette staff. His column appears on Saturday.

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