I was in first grade when I first learned about Christopher Columbus’ “heroics” — how he braved the ocean blue in the waning years of the 15th century.
I was young, impressionable, a fan of the rhyme. I felt a sense of pride it was India he sought. Innocent of the realization that goodness knows had he found my country of heritage, he would have worked to violently wipe my ancestors clean from the Earth, ransacking their land and looting their fortunes. Instead, the good ol’ British took care of the latter some 116 years later.
But it took me years to realize Columbus was no hero. He was a coward, a bully and a fool — one, incidentally, in desperate need of a GPS. And that’s the case with so many of our bygone legends in power. They could swap their swords for the mightier pen, and so it’s their perspectives we learn, not of those they conquered or oppressed for centuries.
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