Austin, Texas city officials voted to completely replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day. They voted to remove Columbus Day from city calendars calling for public schools to teach that Columbus is not a positive role model. The resolution says that honoring Christopher Columbus' role in history promotes values of intolerance and violence. Those words caused me to wonder if Columbus’ values really promoted intolerance and violence, and how his values compared with the indigenous people of America. To make the statement, “Christopher Columbus’s role in history promotes values of intolerance and violence” seemed to me a bold and unprovable prejudicial statement. Intolerance and violence exists, and has existed in every society all over the world throughout all time.  With that understanding, I concluded that promoting values of violence and intolerance was probably not what changing the name of the holiday was really about. I still...(Read Full Article)