ColumbusIndigenous Peoples Day
Mon October 13th, 2003 11:34 MSTThe birds must have looked down with envy Saturday, as Indian dancers, drummers and singers dressed in their finest feathers, skins and bells gathered for a Pow Wow to celebrate Berkeley’s 12th annual Indigenous Peoples Day at Civic Center Park.
The birds were wondering if *their* feathers were next! Where were the animal rights protesters? Were the feathers and skins artificial and made in China (like many of the “Indian” souveneirs available along old Route 66)? At least the wearers were safe, since Native Americans are the only Americans who are not sent to jail for posssession of eagle feathers! Consistency is not a characteristic of the left.
“The Pow Wow is really the only thing that’s like a church for the Indians, it keeps the faith going,” said Ron Walashek, an Indian artist of Urok, Cherokee and Irish descent. “It keeps the faith going.”
Multiculturalism is a religion of the left, and this keeps *that* faith going also.
Jesse Holder, 15, of Alameda, resplendent in a yellow, red, white and black striped and fringed outfit and a headpiece fashioned from horse hair and porcupine quills, has been dancing for five or six years.
Who is speaking for the poor porcupine? Where was the Animal Liberation Front? When are they planning on burning down the The Department of Ethnic Studies (with it’s Native American Studies section)? If you don’t get with it, ALF folks, you’ll show that American terrorists are inferior to Islamic lunatics. It would be a national disgrace!
Berkeley has suffered its share of jokes and jabs for replacing the Columbus Day holiday with Indigenous Peoples Day 12 years ago, to recognize the suffering and near annihilation of Native American peoples as settlers came and seized the Indians’ lands.
Never enough! But then Bezerkeley has long done so many silly things that it’s hard to laugh at all them all without choking!
Watching the primitive rituals of the Indians Native Americans Indigenous Peoples is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Indian ceremonies are indeed quite colorful.
Throwing out today’s celebration of Columbus’ rediscovery of America is just silly Politically Correct nonsense.
For that matter, where are the members of Italian-American community? Don’t they realize they are being “dissed” by this nonsense?
At the very least, they should have a sit-in, shout a bunch of obscenities, dress up in “authentic” italian clothes, engage in an authentic Italian religious ritual (Catholic mass), and demand representation in the Department of Ethnic Studies. They should also, in the spirit of Bezerkeley, demand their own Residence Hall Theme Program (segregated housing).
Note: Also posted at PC Watch.
my grandson says the devil is Italian
Dear John,
What’s wrong with Multiculturalism?
As actually practiced, multiculturalism is used to create competing ethnic or cultural groups which then fight over their share of government largess. It causes people to owe their first allegiance to those of their ethnicity rather than their neighbors or their nation.
There is nothing wrong with a nation that has immigrants from many cultures. The United States is such a nation. But when the cultures are encouraged to remain separate, with members identifying with their original culture, it creates divisiveness, political pandering and violence. It also tends to cause members of the newly arriving cultures to live in relative poverty by preventing their assimilation into the full society.
It also is based on the flawed assumption that all cultures are of equal value. The proof of this flaw is trivial, but the effects of it are devastating to the unity and common purpose of a democracy.
The “mixing pot” model of America was based on the assimilation of immigrants into an English speaking society based on a particular legal system and judeo-Christian value. Immigrants left behind their identity as members of other societies and joined ours (sometimes this took a couple of generations and they often faced early discrimination).
The success of America shows the value of the mixing pot. I personally have German, Irish, American Indian, and who knows what else ancestry, and this is not at all unusual.
This being said, we have ethnic celebrations. Here in Arizona we have Cinco de Mayo celebrations - from Mexico. St. Patrick’s day is an Irish tradition. We don’t extinguish the external cultures, but rather assimilate small pieces of them.
As actually practiced, multiculturalism is used to create competing ethnic or cultural groups which then fight over their share of government largess. It causes people to owe their first allegiance to those of their ethnicity rather than their neighbors or their nation.
There is nothing wrong with a nation that has immigrants from many cultures. The United States is such a nation. But when the cultures are encouraged to remain separate, with members identifying with their original culture, it creates divisiveness, political pandering and violence. It also tends to cause members of the newly arriving cultures to live in relative poverty by preventing their assimilation into the full society. Notice how Berkeley abandoned Columbus day (a national holiday of special interest to Italians) in favor of indigenous peoples’. This is the kind of pandering that is dangerous. By the way, I have attended a number of Native American (they call themselves Indians, btw) ceremonies, having lived in the Southwest almost my entire life, and we wonsider them a colorful treasure.
Multiculturalism also is based on the flawed assumption that all cultures are of equal value. The proof of this flaw is trivial, but the effects of it are devastating to the unity and common purpose of a democracy.
The “mixing pot” model of America was based on the assimilation of immigrants into an English speaking society, with a particular legal system and judeo-Christian values. Immigrants left behind their identity as members of other societies and joined ours (sometimes this took a few generations and they often faced early discrimination).
The success of America shows the value of the mixing pot. I personally have German, Irish, British, American Indian, and who knows what else ancestry, and this is not at all unusual.
This being said, we have ethnic celebrations. Here in Arizona we have Cinco de Mayo celebrations - from Mexico. St. Patrick’s day is an Irish tradition. We don’t extinguish the external cultures, but rather assimilate small pieces of them.
Dear John,
I have heard that Canada has actively supported multiculturalism, and that have heard that it works very well.
joeS