500+ Years of Colonialism: Racism / White Supremacy

For the last 500+ years, the world has been subjected to the system of colonialism which began with Christopher Columbus (Cristofo Colon). That began with the assertion the the Europeans "discovered" the Western hemisphere when millions of people had been living here in high civilizations for thousands of years! What a truly INSANE absurdity! This psychotic assertion was followed by genocide that nearly destroyed the 500 Native Nations -- many of which were functioning at much higher levels than any in Europe! The Europeans burned all but 3 of the books of the Maya to destroy documentation of their high culture! The period also included the colonization of Africa, India, and Australia. Africans were dragged to the Americas where the most brutal system of slavery ever known was implemented and has continued in various forms until today.

 

To justify these crimes, their genocides and theft of continents, Europeans invented the concept of a "white" race in 1681 and created a fiction of white supremacy in the 18th century.  They could not in good conscience admit what they had done. They could not admit what they had done to the peoples of Africa who had rescued them from the Dark Age in 711AD and to the descendants of Egypt from whom the ancient Greeks said they had learned everything they knew.

Dr. Martin Bernal is the author of the 1987 book Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985. It shows that in the 18th century, Europe began to deny its enormous debt to Egypt because it could not live with that knowledge and the knowledge of the slavery it had imposed on Africa. So, they compounded the crimes of genocide and theft of continents with the falsification of European and world history!  Europeans falsified the World Map to favor Europe at the expense of the rest of the world!

 

To justify their unjustifiable crimes against humanity, the Europeans blamed (and continue to blame) their victims -- designating them as inferior and thus having no rights. This rampage continues today in a wide variety of ways. As late as 1992, the world was ready to spend billions of dollars to "celebrate" the Columbus Quincentennial -- the 500-year anniversary of Columbus's rampage. Yet, in a few years after his arrival in the Caribbean, Columbus had killed 90% of Taino people who has welcomed him although he had said that they were the nicest people he had ever met.

Clearly, Columbus was a psychopath -- as were all the other "conquistadors" who are still celebrated.  Fortunately, although Columbus Day is still a national holiday, now at least 55 cities now celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead. In 2017, a bill was introduced in Congress to replace Columbus Day with a day honoring the original inhabitants of this hemisphere. However, there are still many American cities -- like Columbus, Ohio -- named for Columbus. The nation's capital is called the District of Columbia. Columbus Circle and Columbia University are prominent places in New York City. The book Ebony and Ivy shows the close connection between some of America's elite universities and slavery.

 

So, we have a lot of work to do to end this brutal 500-year system that so ill-serves 90% of humanity and the planet. In fact, while colonialism, racism, and white supremacy may have seemed to enrich Europe, even many countries in Europe are struggling with poverty. More importantly, it has been an empoverishment of the soul, basic humanity, and historical honesty.  Western civilization is the only major culture that has failed to make Enlightenment its goal!