Chapter Fourteen - No More Myths

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

No More Myths

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS DIDN’T discover America.
He didn’t bring civilization.
He didn’t make the world better.

He lied.
He killed.
He stole.
And we taught kids to celebrate him for it.

This book was never just about tearing down one man.
It was about tearing down the lie that made him sacred.

Because the real damage Columbus did wasn’t in 1492.

It was in every year after. When we kept his name clean while the graves filled up.

It’s not just that he was evil.
It’s that we knew and still chose the myth.

We had the records.
The letters.
The testimonies.
The screams.

And we ignored them.
We chiseled his name into cities.
We built schools in his honor.
We named the capital of the United States’ empire after him.

We turned genocide into curriculum.
We taught a lie so loud that truth had to whisper for centuries.

That’s the real horror.

Not what Columbus did.

What we did to keep him holy.

This doesn’t end with toppling statues.

It ends when we stop building holidays on graves.
When we stop telling kids “everyone was doing it back then.”
When we stop teaching “discovery” without talking about displacement.
When we start seeing Indigenous nations as nations.
When we start telling the truth even when it burns.

History isn’t sacred.
It’s not neutral.
It’s not untouchable.

It’s editable.

So edit it.

Burn the myth.

Build something better.