She finally voiced her deepest desires in vivid detail, she just disguised it all as a distant dream.
- G.L. Angelone
Don’t touch me if you don’t mean it.
The War Boys (2009)
“But just because you’re strong and resilient doesn’t mean you never need someone to be there for you, to take care of you.”
— Tammara Webber
“The moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”
— Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me
Since that fateful day in 1492, Columbus has been seen as a hero in the eyes of Americans. Recently, the horrible crimes that he committed have been the topic of a national conversation. Columbus Day is certainly a hot-button issue, but there is only one morally sound decision: America must abolish Columbus Day and replace it with a day to honor his Native American victims.
As his explorations have become a staple of U.S. history, Columbus has been molded into a symbol, not a real person. Many supporters of Columbus call him a “symbol of American success”, but he was more than a symbol. He was a complex human being, and idolizing him lets us ignore his flaws. Columbus has come to represent heroism and exploration. These are important values, so why should we taint them with Columbus’s name?
Columbus does not deserve to be honored for making a navigation mistake. On his expedition, Columbus was attempting to sail to India, not to the Americas. He ended up landing in Caribbean Islands through no effort of his own. This mistake resulted in Native Americans being called Indians for centuries, an inaccurate label.
Columbus is often credited with discovering America. However, he didn’t discover America, because the Native Americans were already there. It’s impossible to discover a region that’s already occupied with millions of people. Furthermore, Native Americans were extremely knowledgeable about the climate and ecosystem of the Americas, and deserve honor much more for their contributions to our understanding of geography.
Columbus enslaved the Native Americans, seeing them only as a means to profit. This wasn’t his first time trading slaves, though. Before his expedition, Columbus made a living selling African slaves in Portugal. Through his ventures in Native American slave trading, he created the Transatlantic slave trade, setting in motion our country’s most shameful and horrific piece of history.
Columbus was responsible for Native American genocide. He committed the first mass genocide of Native Americans, a massacre of 8,000,000 people. Within one generation of Columbus’s arrival, about 15,000,000 Native Americans were killed. By time Columbus left, only 100,000 Native Americans were left, and by 1542, there were only 200.
Columbus day isn’t just not “politically correct”. It’s a holiday that celebrates one of the most evil, genocidal, and racist people in history. His kill count is on par with everyone killed in World War I, and yet America still idolizes him. It’s the responsibility of legislators to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day.
[ 중요한 영어 어휘 ] encourage / encouraging / encouragement
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“I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.”
— Roy Croft
“Have you ever sat there, looking into space and feeling a tight grip wrapped around your heart, it’s squeezing and squeezing not allowing you to breathe and slowly slowly you start to feel the tears fall down, and one after another the fits start to happen and you just can’t stop it. It hurts so bad it’s indescribable. People say love hurts, but that words used are so vague, “love hurts”, no love kills, and it doesn’t just take your breath away it takes away a piece of you, making you feel fragmented, shattering you into small different pieces where you can’t even get yourself back up on track again. That is what love is. Not the holding hands, forehead kisses. It’s the feeling you feel when you break down into a million pieces. It’s when you can feel your heart shatter against your rib cage. It’s murder. That is love.”
“I walk along a street and see in the faces of the passersby not the expression they really have but the expression they would have for me if they knew about my life and how I am, if I carried, transparent in my gestures and my face, the ridiculous, timid abnormality of my soul.”
—
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
The voices won't leave me alone,
Crawling out the shadows,
Like vines that have overgrown,
Blocking out the windows
To sanity, to reality
I'm not sure if I want them to leave me
Because atleast they stayed
Unlike the people with empty words and hollow promises
I feel like I'm digging my own grave.
Maybe I've always been desperate for some company even if it destroys me.