No, Not Columbus

Years ago I wrote a song called..."No, Not Columbus". The chorus said..."No, not Columbus...he thought he'd reached India
....a very long...long time ago...who do you think found America". The response to this song on the whole...
has been affirmative...with a few knee jerk reactions...with the charge of "heresy" not too far behind...in between. A teacher at a school where I had just finished singing this song...once told me..."how can you say this about someone who is one of our heroes". This surprised me coming from a teacher...someone who is supposed to teach their students...I think...about truth seeking and independent mindedness. Perhaps this teacher hadn't mulled over what I was trying to say...in the following verse...which said..."No...it wasn't a man with a long red beard...or an endless Pepsodent smile...was a little brown man with an arrow and bow...who'd been hunting for many a mile". [N.B. I later wrote a revised version of this song that allowed that it could have been a "little brown woman" also]. This verse...holds the key to what I was getting at with this song. It was that...with Native People of the Americas...inhabiting what is now called North...Central...and South America...for such a long time before Columbus got lost on his way to India...it is a highly Euro-centric thing to say...that the first well advertised European...who came here..."discovered the Americas". This statement...at one fell swoop...relegates those who brought into being the Inca...Maya...Atztec civilizations...not to mention all the other Native People who have occupied the Americas...without destroying the environment that gave them sustenance...to less than human status. What it all boils down to...is that the flat statement that "Columbus discovered the Americas"...is nothing less than a racist statement...not to mention the claims that before Columbus...others not indigenous to the Americas...set foot here...the Vikings...Chinese...and Phoenicians...to mention a few........................Quester.