Columbus Day Teach-In : The Real Day of Infamy
Monday, October 9, 2006
7PM
Alfishawy Café, 4132 Georgia Avenue NW

For the 2nd consecutive year, I invite you to a teach-in looking at the relationships between colonialism and the indigenous people of the Americas who have suffered under colonialism. Christopher Columbus in 1492 undertook a voyage that opened the doors to 500-plus years of genocide, 500-plus years in which 90-98% of indigenous peoples have died as a result of this genocide, including millions at the hands of Columbus alone.

Last year, I gave a talk entitled, “Genocide Against the American Indian, Destruction of the Buffalo, and Imperialism in Iraq." This year, we are going to build off of the ground began during last year’s Columbus Day educational event.

With the organizing help of one of DC’s newest groups, Resistance and Solidarity, two others speakers will be joining me in presenting different aspects of the problem of colonialism as it relates to indigenous peoples. Either Gabrielle Tayac of the Piscataway Nation or John Steinbach will be talking about the people who were here before there was a District of Columbia (and who can miss the irony that the District of Columbia, whose residents suffer under a colonial status, is named after Christopher Columbus). Logynn, a graduate student at American University, will be sharing the story of indigenous peoples he has worked with in Ecuador. Finally, I will be talking about Yellowstone National Park, how indigenous peoples were wiped out of Yellowstone’s boundaries, and how the ideal of Yellowstone and other national parks are tainted by the history of colonialism, capitalism, and genocide.

We will follow these presentations with an open discussion talking about the connections between the widely diverse subject matter and how we can pay more attention to colonialism in the context of living in and around Washington, DC.

This event is free and open to the public.

I hope you all can make it.

Jim Macdonald

Last year’s presentation:
Genocide Against the American Indian, Destruction of the Buffalo, and Imperialism in Iraq