Textbooks still whitewash Columbus

Columbus revisitedIn fourteen hundred ninety-two, a familiar poem intones, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

In his travels, he also kidnapped into slavery hundreds of Caribbean people and some of his crew abused native women.

Yet, a new University of Florida study found most elementary-school picture books whitewash or distort that truth.

Donna Sabis-Burns found that few books use newer Columbus scholarship. Sixty percent call the Tainos, the native tribe whom Columbus encountered, everything from "natives" to "naked, red-skinned savages." But the Tainos were skilled farmers, hunters and seafarers.

After more than five centuries, it is past time kids discover the truth about a tribe that inhabited the Americas and provided succor to the man credited with discovering them.Comment:  So much for the claims that "political correctness" has rewritten our textbooks. And made them too liberal, multicultural, and "anti-American"--i.e., fair and balanced. Where Columbus is concerned, it just isn't so.

For a similar whitewashing effort, see Hudson Websites Omit Indians. For a previous Columbus controversy, see Columbus Apologists Obsess Over Past.