What can BROWN Do For You? Here's what:
April 8, 2009 by Patrick Madrid
Filed under Patrick's Blog
Some of the coeducational denizens of Brown University have sunk a little deeper into the mire of ridiculousness and irrelevance. Observe the university’s Undergraduate Council of Students’ new manifesto condemning the institution’s recognition of Columbus Day. And here is a snippet from a news report about it:
“Hundreds of Brown students had asked the Providence, R.I. school to stop observing Columbus Day, saying Christopher Columbus’s violent treatment of Native Americans he encountered was inconsistent with Brown’s values. . . .” (continue reading)
At the start of his book, A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn includes part of an entry from Columubus’ Diary where he says:
“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned…. They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane…. They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
If the entry is authentic, and not taken out of context, I can at least see the Brown students’ point of view.