By Emily Mukasa
Christopher Columbus still has tongues wagging 520 years after his controversial discovery of America. The Columbus Day celebrations every second week of October are still accompanied by determined protestors, who desire to divert attention from “the great explorer” to his systematic destruction of the continents’ native peoples and lands.
The clash of opposing views still rages on about whether the spontaneous navigator, who unveiled America’s beauty, should be honored as a hero or disgraced as a selfish slave trader.
While some say celebrating him as an American discoverer is very important, others consider honoring him on Oct. 10 as glorifying a symbol of genocide.
 Dr. Tink Tinker, a professor of American Indian Cultures at Denver University’s Iliff School of Theology blames Columbus for the scandalous decline of the Native American population during his years of governorship in the Caribbean.
“And yet white America finds this a hero to be celebrated. They have created all these myths about Columbus, the great navigator, adventurer, and hero,” said Tinker, a member of the Osage nation and the American Indian Movement (AIM).
Tinker said evidence shows the existence of about 3 to 8 million Native Americans, living in what is now the United States, in 1492.
“Therefore, for people to say that he discovered this land, as if it had been undiscovered by all these millions of people, is illegal,” Tinker said.
However, George Vendegnia, 58, the founder of the Sons of Italy, believes the day is celebrated to focus on America’s discovery and not the massacres.
“The day is not about Christopher Columbus, but it is about America,“ said Vendegnia.
He advises Native Americans not to blame the Europeans, but to instead fight the federal government to legally transform the day. He insists it would be difficult to have it changed in Colorado and not have it ratified in other states. He believes it would be easier to change it now than it was 30 years ago, because people did not know the history then.
“I would accept it if American Indians in Colorado went to other states to change it, because having it manipulated in Colorado first, would be extremely difficult,” he said.
Meanwhile, Tinker, who is also a religious traditions professor, does not desire for the Columbus Day name to be changed to anything else, apart from earnestly desiring for it to be completely abolished.
“Racism has to be dealt with in the backyard here in the metropolitan area of Denver in order to have an effect nationally and globally,” he added.
 In the midst of the controversy, entrepreneur and pastor Greg McDonald, 52, gives Columbus credit for discovering America, and asserts that traveling by sea to unknown areas by people took a lot of courage in those days.
McDonald agrees Columbus should be celebrated more as a discoverer than a slave trader, because he thinks discovery in that time must have been so exciting. He also believes in those days people had to step out in faith since the world was relatively unknown.
McDonald firmly insists that Native Americans will become better people in the future, if they embrace their past rather than try to correct history. As an African American, McDonald said, “Yes, it is horrible but it’s hard to erase what happened.”
“We are African Americans. It is hard to say, we were not slaves, but that’s what makes us who we are, our rich culture and history gives us strength. We have endured and still have come out on top,” McDonald said.
All that Tinker said he asks is for the weak-backbone Democratic politicians in Colorado to take a moral stand on this holiday that he perceives as a celebration of Native American genocide.
 Mark Freeland, a 34-year-old doctoral student at the Iliff School of Theology, calls the excuses by Columbus supporters, about why Columbus wiped innocent people out of their land, flimsy.
“People say he was just a person of his time. There were diseases among American Indians,” said Freeland, a member of the Ojibwe nation and AIM. “All lies. They can not establish the fact that enslaving people, denying them food and medicine to gain land is not a cycle of violence that did the killing.”
Freeland disregards talk that Native Americans were not utilizing the land, and said the land was widely utilized in so many ways, including for agricultural purposes.
He, therefore, does not understand how someone can discover a place people already owned and lived.
Tinker said asking the American Indian people to forget about the issue would be devastatingly hard, since they are still living with that past.
“The church can apologize but no one gives land back to the Indians,” Tinker said. “Fifty percent of our kids do not graduate from high school; the American Indian employment rate is five to six times the unemployment rate of Black Americans, and 10 times of the general population.”
Tinker and Freeland stated the children are paying the price for America’s history of violence. Tinker maintains he will continue making clear to the children that the things done to their ancestors were unjust. Freeland and his 2-year-old son participate in Ojibwe traditional ceremonies to make sure Native American traditions do not fade.
The professor and student published a paper, entitled Murderer, Liar, Thief was pub, in which they outline the demography of Espanola Island, where Columbus’ headquarters were established. The island’s population greatly declined to 5,000 people within seven years of Columbus’ Caribbean governorship, they wrote.
In his efforts to protect free speech, David Lane, 53, who has been a criminal defense lawyer for 27 years said the only way for society to advance is to allow free speech.
Lane, who has won various cases for protestors, confirmed that empathy is a serious problem in American society, adding “People do not think something affects them until it happens.”
However, he believes Italians have their right to celebrate the day under the first amendment, while political protestors can, too.
Lane said, "It is a political matter. They're trying to be effective through protesting, e.g. the civil rights were sparked by protesting. If they are to get popular support then they will get a change."
Meanwhile, he affirmed he evaluates people based on the time they lived.
In Lane’s opinion, since it might have been Columbus’ culture in those days, Columbus did both a good and bad job.
“He needs to be praised and condemned as an explorer,” Lane said.
Although Tinker believes that violence will never end until his white relatives own up to their history, he said there is no love lost between protestors and celebrators of the parade.
Describing the controversy as between Italians and Native Americans is wrong, because Italians are good people and there are racists in every society, he said.
“Italians are helping Native Americans organize the parade. They are working with us to bring justice to the world,” said Tinker. “They stand with us in solidarity.”
Freeland feels that a lot of progress has been achieved, because Columbus Day celebrations have been abolished in other countries and a couple of states in America.
“People in Italy do not care about Christopher Columbus. Twenty-five thousand protested against Columbus in 1992,” Freeland said. “We have spoken to people in Guatemala. People in Europe celebrate him not. It is now Indigenous People’s Day in Venezuela. South Dakota has abolished it, and New Mexico is in the process.”
Nevertheless, Vendegnia of the Sons of Italy feels if the day is removed, it will be tampering with America’s freedom for which the army is protecting out there.
In Pastor McDonald’s opinion, the day should neither change nor disappear, because it is part of history just like the Holocaust.
“People from different walks of life have to realize that taking it away will not help because it is hard to erase history,” he said.
Many cultures including Italians, Blacks, and Native Americans raided for slaves in the past, he said, explaining “you find that communities would raid each other and victims would go to victors forcefully."
McDonald asserted it has long been the history of mankind. It is part of humanity where one group of people always dictates the rule of another.
“Humanity has never been fair because there has always been one person who always wants more. That will not end by protesting,” he said. “It will continue happening, because that’s the nature of man.”
He said that if it were not Columbus, it would have been someone else, and concluded, people have to make their own mark in history by either doing nothing or pressing on towards the future.
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