And PragerU is approved in certain schools as teaching materials… It’s not funny, it’s fuckin dangerous!
as non American, what is PragerU? I tried wikipedia but…
It’s an “educational website” pushing a strong right wing narrative.
Edited to add, and by right wing narrative I mean alternate “facts” and revisionist views of history. https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63329/prageru-is-a-conservative-video-giant-heres-why-its-trying-to-get-into-schools
The indigenous populations that were first enslaved by the spanish colonists were literally worked to the death. The spaniards were so cruel that the natives would often kill themselves when capture was imminent.
“There are fates worse than death”
Explanation and some thoughts: First, I would like to note, in unfortunate if mild agreement with the PragerU bullshit, that the development of slavery in settled societies was an improvement over genociding all the defeated enemies. As societies develop, conflicts with ever-further-flung foes means that societies cannot integrate peoples who are extremely hostile and culturally distinct into the polity without extensive assimilative institutions, which are fairly late developments in most societies. This leaves either expelling the enemies, murdering them, or reducing their ability to resist (ie through the restriction of their liberty). As population densities increase, expulsion ceases to be an option - leaving only murder or reduction of the defeated’s state. This is not an excuse for the individuals who participate in the institution of slavery (with the odd reinforcing note that even in many slaver societies, slave traders and overseers are seen as utter scum), but that, on a societal level, slavery is an unfortunate lesser evil compared to genocide. This is a large part of the reason why slavery is so widespread in human history, across vastly different cultures and regions, and in societies where the economic influence of slavery remains minimal.
HOWEVER
First, the Atlantic Slave Trade was not based on this unfortunate development of early human society - it was the trade of flesh for cash by European societies which not only had developed means of overcoming resistance by legal institutions WITHOUT resorting to slavery, like earlier polities, but were not even seriously involved in the wars on the African continent at the time, making their involvement purely and objectively a fucking evil, not even a lesser evil like early slavery, but a greater one. The Europeans fueled wars between African tribes on the continent (who were largely restricted by the aforementioned circumstances making slavery the least-bad option after intense wars) all in the name of buying cheap slave labor, because the prospect of paying a decent share to their own Filthy Poors™ was too much for their precious little pocketbooks to handle.
Second, Christopher Columbus was a piece of shit by the standards of a time wherein we would regard the ‘baseline’ of behavior as representing total pieces of shit. Not only was he a slaver before he became a explorer, but when he found and was welcomed by the people of the Caribbean with gifts and supplies after a long journey, his first instinct was to plunder, murder, and enslave them. If that wasn’t bad enough, his treatment of them after being granted control of the region was so abhorrent that the Spanish crown, itself hardly a bastion of humane treatment and sentiment, stripped him of his position on grounds of cruelty.
And third, offering someone a choice between slavery and death for the crime of existing while being weaker is not a fucking good thing, and certainly not something that a fucking children’s ‘educational’ program should be playing apologist for. The ‘nuances’ of slavery should not exactly be high on the fucking curriculum.
“Getting punched in the shoulder is better than a kick to the face, no?”
“Why are you hitting me?”
Minor correction, the Spanish crown objected to him enslaving Christians which is a major violation of Canonical Law. They would have been fine had he enslaved them but after making them Christian subjects of Spain it was a bridge too far.
I thought part of his behavior was preventing natives from being baptized specifically so he could legally enslave them.
It’s not a core period/subject of interest of mine, so I might be remembering wrong.
That could be the case and I could be misremembering. I’ll try to find Isabella’s letter about it later.
If that wasn’t bad enough, his treatment of them after being granted control of the region was so abhorrent that the Spanish crown, itself hardly a bastion of humane treatment and sentiment, stripped him of his position on grounds of cruelty.
My understanding is that he was stripped of his position because of what he did to his European subjects and because his rival wanted to take his place, and that hardly anyone back in Europe gave a shit about his abuse of native people. Is that not correct?
His rival wanting to take his place was definitely part of it, but his abuses against the native peoples were recounted in great and horrific detail as core accusations of his unfitness for the position of governor.
You forgot the party where Columbus was going to be EXECUTED by the Crown, and may have only been saved by being friends with Queen Isabella.
To add, slaves generally did work which was very unhealthy, either because of the work itself or the environment (heat, diseases). IIRC (it’s been a while since university) most slaves in the Caribbean died within years, generating a constant demand for new slaves.
Plantation holders were always looking for cheap labour from any source (compare indentured servitude), but it was a hard sell compared to the North American colonies.
Reminds me of the Danish colonies. After the king declared an end to slavery in 10 years (iirc) the plantation owners cranked up the cruelty to extract as much wealth as possible.
The enslaved were dying at much high rates and actually lead to the first slave revolt on the islands.
Maybe we need a movie to show the real Columbus because schools like to indoctrinate children with “feel good” stories about that piece of shit.
Or we just need to teach he was banned from Spain upon pain of death for enslaving the natives he converted to Christianity. Within the context of his time he was a bad guy.
What about within the context of today? He’d probably be part of the US government I assume.
Depends on the time period. He would be a hero for most of US history except 1950-2024.
Nah, he’d be a hero throughout, just not to all mericans. Just look at confederate flags and whatnot
fair
It won’t happen. Christians will fight endlessly to protect the positive and completely false image of the man.
It’ll be easier to make a single film which would be put on Christian ban lists which will make it much more widespread and popular than any historical movie.
Christians aren’t fighting for this. Remember there are over a billion Christians who don’t care about him at all. It’s really weird that you are making that association.
Catholics and the massive amount of weirdos that call correct history lessons “woke” mostly fall under the Christian umbrella. They all defend Columbus Day.
Roman Catholics are over 1 BILLION people. I wouldn’t generalize their views like this. The majority likely dont care about Columbus.
Head like a hole. Black as your soul. I’d rather die than give you control.
Bow down before the one you serve. You’re going to get what you deserve.
METAL
Is this a real quote from the prageru animation? That’s enough racism for me today
Yep. It was hilariously cringe. I started watching prageru kids because there’s something really funny about watching a mentally challenged predator trying to lure victims into his van. They just say the stupidest shit as soon as it comes into their head
Did they bother to mention who exactly is going to kill them if they won’t be taken as slaves?
Not out loud, of course. You’re not supposed to be able to understand implication, why would you try to read the implication? Stop reading the implication
Here ya go
Is… is that lower text real…I just cannot tell anymore how toxic reality is.
Yes. PragerU is an extreme right wing media organisation spreading lies and disinformation about everything, from promoting creationism, relativising slavery, defending israelic zionism all the way to framing atheists as amoral, hating on queers or equivocating climate activists with OG nazis.
They are funded by the Wilks family, the National Christian Charitable Foundation and Nancy DeVos among others.PragerU is so blatant with disinfo, the content got restricted and demonetised by multiple platforms, e.g. Twitter and Spotify, PragerU even filed first amendment lawsuits against Google for YT’s handling of their Videos. Although I’m not up to date about how stuff’s going with the new directions under Trump.
It’s being used by many red states as an instructional tool.
All that, and our current ruling party loves them and is trying to put them in public schools 😔
Yes. Yes it is.
._.
Also, absolutely fucking wild to think anyone has ever had to choose between doing these two things, him especially. Motherfucker you could’ve just traded with them then went home
in Italian schools, when teaching the history of the discovery of America, Christopher Columbus is described as a hero…
I learned in the US that he was a mixed bag, but no specifics, until I took a history class in Spanish in college. It could be the language difference or the fact that it wasn’t a Catholic school (edit: or honestly, it could have been that instructors are less likely to get angry calls about nightmares in college), but that’s the first place that we got accurate information about him.
We read his journals, which should be possible with a B2 Spanish (but I suspect Italian would also help, because Columbus was pretty confused about Spanish/italian/portuguese and the journals have a lot of idiosyncratic vocabulary), and they’re stomach turning. He was a fucking monster.
The Roman Catholic Church of the time would not have approved of Columbus enslaving Christians so it is weird your RC schools praised him.
They didn’t praise him exactly, they said he was a bad person who did great things. They just didn’t go into detail about the horrific things he also did.
In the Northeast US we definitely learned about him as a hero, but people (at least my age in my area) seemed too pretty quickly, accept that he wasn’t as good as we had originally learned.
French schools too. In 1992 Columbus was a huge deal, we spent a lot of time staging a play about his first voyage, and he was of course depicted as a righteous hero. I was just a lowly soldier, in hindsight I’m glad they didn’t make us reenact the actual events, shit would’ve scarred me for life…
The only reason Columbus discovered the Americas was because he used bad calculations. Everyone else knew that India was too far away for circumnavigation. He was lucky that there was an undiscovered continent on the way.
Two continents connected by a land bridge that would be impossible to miss!
We call it Hatuey day in my house 😎
The Taíno chiefs in Cuba did not respond to Hatuey’s message, and few joined him to fight.
:(
[Hatuey], thinking a little, asked the religious man if Spaniards went to heaven. The religious man answered yes… The chief then said without further thought that he did not want to go there but to hell so as not to be where they were and where he would not see such cruel people. This is the name and honour that God and our faith have earned.
<3 PragerU supports the lesser evil <3
Prayer U would only support it as long as it is evil. They would never actually support good.
It’s called the lesser evil, not the good.
Satan is the lesser evil?
Isn’t he always? Satan killed less people than any American president has.
