Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central yew.
Speaker 2: Here in the United States, this coming Monday is Columbus Day,
Speaker 2: the holiday celebrating Christopher Columbus for stumbling ass backwards into
Speaker 2: the New World and then killing most of the people
Speaker 2: who lived there. But for a lot of Americans, that
Speaker 2: story isn't as charming as it once was.
Speaker 3: You likely learned this line in school. In fourteen ninety two,
Speaker 3: Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue.
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty, Columbus War Orange paint. Demonstrators around the
Speaker 4: country have been calling for the removal of statues of
Speaker 4: Christopher Columbus, saying the Italian explorer is responsible for the
Speaker 4: genocide and exploitation of Native people.
Speaker 5: The Christopher Columbus statue in Boston defaced, specifically be headed.
Speaker 6: In Minneapolis, protesters tied ropes around the neck of a
Speaker 6: Christopher Columbus statue and they pulled it down.
Speaker 2: Demonstrators cheering as they brought down a Christopher columb statue
Speaker 2: in Baltimore, and it was then dumped into the Baltimore
Speaker 2: Inner Harbor. Oh, look at that, Columbus is still exploring
Speaker 2: the oceans. Don't ever stop doing what you love. Well, guys,
Speaker 2: look for real. We need to think about whether it's
Speaker 2: a good idea to tear down these statues, because statues
Speaker 2: are where the birds poop. What are they supposed to do? Now?
Speaker 2: Hold it in And I feel especially bad for the
Speaker 2: people who made these statues. You put all that work
Speaker 2: in and you don't know if this guy's gonna get
Speaker 2: canceled in one hundred years. That's so unfair. That's why
Speaker 2: beheading the statue is the best solution, because you can
Speaker 2: save the body and just pop on the head of
Speaker 2: someone else, like shack. You see flawless. But while one
Speaker 2: group sees tearing down Columbus statues as an attack on colonialism,
Speaker 2: another group sees it as a personal attack on their culture.
Speaker 3: Some here feel like they're the target of reverse racism,
Speaker 3: arguing we should learn from our past, not erase it.
Speaker 5: First thing that I learned in third grade Christopher Columbus
Speaker 5: discovered America. So it's an Italian immigrant, okay, But he's
Speaker 5: telling you this here represents something to my Italian history.
Speaker 2: It's terrible that they were the great, something so sacred
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 4: An attack on Columbus is really a hate crime against
Speaker 4: Italian Americans.
Speaker 3: We all remember nine to eleven.
Speaker 6: After that, faithful I think day you remember, right, Red, white,
Speaker 6: and blue was everywhere.
Speaker 2: In a respectful sense, this is our nine eleven.
Speaker 7: They're doing the same thing that Columbus did.
Speaker 6: They're coming in our neighborhood and taking away our heritage.
Speaker 7: Okay, they're hypocrites.
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, that's an argument for Columbus. I can safely
Speaker 2: say I've never heard before. You can't just come in
Speaker 2: here and destroy our heritage. That's Columbus's thing. No vaccines.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I can't believe that the other
Speaker 2: guy said that in a respectful sense, this is our
Speaker 2: nine to eleven. Ook, man, I don't care how respectfully
Speaker 2: you put it. You can't compare anything like this to
Speaker 2: nine eleven, Like does this guy go through a drive through, like,
Speaker 2: excuse me, you've forgotten my fries, and respectfully, this is
Speaker 2: my nine to eleven. Now you might wonder why why
Speaker 2: would Italian Americans want to commemorate the worst part of
Speaker 2: their culture, Like, for instance, I love being black, but
Speaker 2: I'm not going to put up a statue of oj
Speaker 2: in my backyard, especially not while my white friends are there.
Speaker 2: But once you hear why those statues actually went up
Speaker 2: in the first place, you can understand why they are
Speaker 2: so meaningful to Italian Americans.
Speaker 1: In the late eighteen hundreds, Italian immigrants were arriving in
Speaker 1: the United States in big numbers, and they faced harsh discrimination.
Speaker 1: They were treated as perpetual foreigners, and their Catholic beliefs
Speaker 1: opened the door for even more discrimination. So they embraced Columbus.
Speaker 1: After all, he was Italian and Catholic and already admired,
Speaker 1: so he quickly became an icon for Italian immigrants who
Speaker 1: argued that they too belonged in America. In eighteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: Columbus Day was first brought into the school system. A
Speaker 1: year later, Columbus became the theme of the World Expo
Speaker 1: in Chicago, branding him America's hero around the world. As
Speaker 1: Columbus and his legend became further embedded in American culture,
Speaker 1: so did the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic social club
Speaker 1: founded by Italian immigrants. By nineteen thirty seven, the Knights
Speaker 1: of Columbus had gained enough influence to convince President Roosevelt
Speaker 1: to proclaim Columbus Day a federal holiday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, it's easy to forget that today. But
Speaker 2: there was a time when Italian Americans were badly oppressed
Speaker 2: in America, and they held up Christopher Columbus as a
Speaker 2: role model because he put them at the center of
Speaker 2: America's story, the same way Puerto Ricans hold up Alexander Hamilton.
Speaker 2: And look, it's hard to reconcile someone's actions when you've
Speaker 2: built them up so much, not just as a person,
Speaker 2: but as a symbol. I mean, just ask anyone who's
Speaker 2: trying to decide if they can play Michael Jackson songs
Speaker 2: at their wedding. But times have changed, and more and
Speaker 2: more people are finding it hard to celebrate Columbus, knowing
Speaker 2: all the bad things that he did. The good news
Speaker 2: is that times have changed in other ways too. Italian
Speaker 2: Americans have gone from being persecuted to being some of
Speaker 2: the country's most powerful politicians, entertainers, and med school cadavers.
Speaker 2: So you could replace Columbus with any number of deserving Italians.
Speaker 2: I mean, just off the top of my head, what
Speaker 2: if we replaced Columbus with doctor Anthony Fauci. He's an
Speaker 2: Italian American hero. He's beloved and respected by everyone, or
Speaker 2: at least almost everyone, and he's trying to fight disease
Speaker 2: instead of spreading it all over the continent. And best
Speaker 2: of all, doctor Fouchi is a short guy, so you
Speaker 2: save on the marble casts. The point is Americans don't
Speaker 2: need Christopher Columbus to celebrate the deeper meaning of Columbus Day,
Speaker 2: honoring America's immigrant heritage, celebrating Italian culture, and most importantly,
Speaker 2: getting the day off. Everyone has heard of the Hamptons.
Speaker 2: It's where New York's rich and famous get this some on.
Speaker 2: But these past few months, the Hampton's has also been
Speaker 2: the home of a major dispute. Michael Costa has more.
Speaker 8: When you think of the Hamptons, you think of pristine beaches,
Speaker 8: cold rose, and dressing up as a caterer to sneak
Speaker 8: in a Billy Joel's Labor Day party. But the Hamptons
Speaker 8: also have a dark side, an ancient conflict between the
Speaker 8: white man and his mansions in the Shinnecock, a native
Speaker 8: tribe who live next door on their ancestral lands. Now
Speaker 8: the conflict is erupting again, as the Shinnecock have erected
Speaker 8: a giant tribal monument on the only road into the Hamptons.
Speaker 8: I went to find out how an indigenous symbol could
Speaker 8: raise tensions in a place with the world's highest concentration
Speaker 8: of NPR.
Speaker 7: Toee bags, it is kind of an isore, you know.
Speaker 9: You come here for its beautiful nature and environment and
Speaker 9: to see that it's just out of place.
Speaker 4: Very obtrusive and distracting.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's so big, right, so much to kind of
Speaker 2: cover from top to bottom.
Speaker 10: Distracting, and so it could be potentially dangerous for any
Speaker 10: of the drivers.
Speaker 8: Okay, it's potentially dangerous for drivers, But that's not the
Speaker 8: main objection.
Speaker 10: I believe that it doesn't allow you to maintain the
Speaker 10: purity of an enclave here.
Speaker 8: When white people start talking about purity, even I get
Speaker 8: a little creeped down. But many of these Hampton Knites
Speaker 8: really believe the monument infringes on their spiritual.
Speaker 7: Connection to the land.
Speaker 8: To get the tribe's perspective, I met with Chairman Brian
Speaker 8: Polite and no, I'm not going to make fun of
Speaker 8: his name. That would be rude.
Speaker 7: Brian, thank you for sitting down. I know you've had
Speaker 7: some bad experiences with the white men, but I come in.
Speaker 11: Peace, hey man, We're all about peace.
Speaker 7: The people of Southampton are saying that due to your monument,
Speaker 7: their way of life is under attack. You're laughing.
Speaker 11: Okay, that's just laughable. We're a sovereign nation and they
Speaker 11: have no authority to tell us what we ken and
Speaker 11: cannot do on our top of land.
Speaker 7: What was the reaction within the tribe when the monument
Speaker 7: went up.
Speaker 11: Very happy. We're the forgotten people of the Hamptons. So
Speaker 11: now we have our marker on the gateway of the
Speaker 11: Hampton's reminding people that they're all visitors on our land.
Speaker 8: Clearly the monument is a source of pride. But what
Speaker 8: is it?
Speaker 7: Oh this shit, it's a billboard. I've never seen anything
Speaker 7: so bad. I mean I have, but it's pretty bad.
Speaker 8: So these natives are using capitalism to ruin the white
Speaker 8: man's sacred way of living with nature. Talk about cultural appropriation.
Speaker 7: This tribal monument looks a lot like an electronic billboard.
Speaker 11: If you ask anybody on the shincognation, we'll say it's
Speaker 11: a monument.
Speaker 7: Let's call it what it is. This monument is your
Speaker 7: side hustle you make. It's an extra money.
Speaker 12: On the side.
Speaker 11: It's a monument to our overcoming adversity and saying that
Speaker 11: we're still here. But also we need money for education,
Speaker 11: police department, playgrounds, social programs, so it'll have an immediate
Speaker 11: economic impact to the nation.
Speaker 7: How much of this monument is economics for the tribe
Speaker 7: and how much of it is kind of a few
Speaker 7: to the Hampton residence.
Speaker 11: Well, I think it's a little bit of both.
Speaker 7: Now, you see that's not very p right.
Speaker 11: Every time somebody builds a MG mansion on our ancestors
Speaker 11: bones or plays golf on our ancestors bones, that's a
Speaker 11: big feu to us. So if we can feed our
Speaker 11: people and at the same time stick it to a
Speaker 11: town that's stuck it to us for the last three
Speaker 11: hundred and seventy five years, so much the better.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 7: So I just want you to know that no more
Speaker 7: golf for.
Speaker 9: Me, thank you.
Speaker 8: In response to the monument, white people have been sharing
Speaker 8: an important part of their culture lawsuits. Members of the
Speaker 8: tribe see these as part of a long pattern of
Speaker 8: a pressure.
Speaker 1: There's some restitution and reparations that have to be made,
Speaker 1: and this sign is pointing to it at the time
Speaker 1: is now.
Speaker 2: It's horrible the way we've been treated since sixteen forty. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I can go into town and I can mow your lawn,
Speaker 2: and I can scrub your toilet, and I can pretend
Speaker 2: like it's okay.
Speaker 3: No more.
Speaker 2: Come to my reservation and see why this is so important.
Speaker 2: To make a stand.
Speaker 8: As a white man facing a four hundred year legacy
Speaker 8: of injustice, racism, and poverty made me feel like a
Speaker 8: total piece of shit. But gazing across the bay at
Speaker 8: Calvin Klein's seventy five million dollar mega mansion, it hit
Speaker 8: me maybe I could be the guy in that Kevin
Speaker 8: Coster movie and bring a message of peace to.
Speaker 7: The pale faces.
Speaker 8: And I knew the perfect way to reach them.
Speaker 7: Problem solved, Michael cost for everyone.
Speaker 6: We'll be right back, ladies and gentlemen. The passage of
Speaker 6: time hasn't lessened the debt areen America owed this country's
Speaker 6: original inhabitants. Even today, Native American culture is under attack,
Speaker 6: as if Monby has more.
Speaker 12: For eighty years, Chief of Lioniwick thrilled the fans at
Speaker 12: the University of Illinois. But this past winter, the Board
Speaker 12: of Trustees voted to send him to the spirit world.
Speaker 12: Now this proud chief will dance no more forever.
Speaker 9: The university made the absolute correct decision getting rid of
Speaker 9: Chief a Liniwick. American Indians are not dancing clowns. We
Speaker 9: are human beings.
Speaker 12: Okay, but what if the football team totally kicks ass.
Speaker 12: You know that no Native American mascots once flourished across
Speaker 12: this great land, but in recent years they've been forced
Speaker 12: from their ancestral homes, putting their very survival in doubt.
Speaker 12: As in dances with wolves, it will take one brave,
Speaker 12: brave to stand up for his people.
Speaker 13: The chief has gone, and so all the spirit and
Speaker 13: all the joy, and all the pride and the honor tradition,
Speaker 13: that's all been taken away from us.
Speaker 12: They're saying, we don't care about your culture. We don't
Speaker 12: care that you will hear first.
Speaker 13: Yeah, the what a trustee is who I believe is
Speaker 13: all Caucasian. Get rid of the Native American chief.
Speaker 12: Surprise, surprise, it's the white man and bullies like this
Speaker 12: couldn't care less.
Speaker 4: I am really glad that the school retired Chief Alnawak.
Speaker 7: I feel like it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 12: Why pale faces like you trying to push Native Americans
Speaker 12: from their homes.
Speaker 2: Chief Alnawak isn't Native American. He's a race based racist stereotype.
Speaker 12: Aren't you a race based stereotype? Seriously? Do have you
Speaker 12: looked at him mirror lately? You look like a Wayne's
Speaker 12: brother playing a white guy.
Speaker 2: That's a new one to me.
Speaker 4: I I've never heard that one.
Speaker 12: Thanks to insensitive belligerents like this, Native American mascot culture
Speaker 12: has been unfairly cast as crude and defensive.
Speaker 13: Our chief was trained by Native Americans so that he
Speaker 13: could be as respectful as possible while performing his dance.
Speaker 12: Brave pukes on himself, do they it's not my name?
Speaker 12: Oh that's my name, brave balls on face. That's not
Speaker 12: my name either, Chief three beer queer. What are the
Speaker 12: parts of Native American culture?
Speaker 2: Do you own it? That is it?
Speaker 13: I honor the dance the Chief has done.
Speaker 12: Like the Native Americans, You waste nothing, use every part
Speaker 12: of the stereotype.
Speaker 13: Why would you say that?
Speaker 12: But Leanne, who is an expert on all things Indian,
Speaker 12: somehow remains unconvinced.
Speaker 9: They are not American Indians. They are not Native. Those
Speaker 9: are fraternities. Chief Alana Wik is not authentic in any
Speaker 9: stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 12: Anyone who has spent time with these noble savages. I
Speaker 12: have knows that's not the case. I followed them to
Speaker 12: their happy hunting grounds. We commune with the spirit world
Speaker 12: and made a traditional offering to Mother Earth. With time
Speaker 12: running out, these indigenous people are making their final appeal
Speaker 12: to America's values.
Speaker 13: The vast majority of the students, fact the staff of
Speaker 13: the community wanted the chief here, so that small minority
Speaker 13: god the chief kicked off the campus.
Speaker 10: Forever.
Speaker 12: Are we supposed to give minorities rights? That's not what
Speaker 12: this country's about.
Speaker 13: They should realize that in America, the majority will win,
Speaker 13: and that's the way that it should be.
Speaker 12: These minorities. They should either get with the majority or shut.
Speaker 5: Them up.
Speaker 13: In some respects and some aspects.
Speaker 12: Yes, only time will tell if Native American mascot culture
Speaker 12: survives or if the sun will set on these nearly
Speaker 12: extinct people.
Speaker 6: Beautiful story. Thank you? Also do that by okay?
Speaker 13: On a scale?
Speaker 8: Friend, how to.
Speaker 2: Where does this wreck?
Speaker 9: That's not that's not that's not good either.
Speaker 2: Earlier today, I spoke with action star and activist Jason Momoa.
Speaker 2: We talked about his new documentary that tells the story
Speaker 2: of Native American communities reclaiming their food and land.
Speaker 3: What's up, buddy?
Speaker 2: What's going on? Jason? How you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm awesome, but not really. I'm in quarantine. I'm going
Speaker 3: out of my mind.
Speaker 2: A lot of people know you as an action star.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, whether it's being a breakout star
Speaker 2: in Game of Thrones, whether it's you know, leading the
Speaker 2: front line of shows on Apple TV with c whether
Speaker 2: it's you know, just like blowing up the box office
Speaker 2: with Aquaman. Jason Momoa is an action star. This project
Speaker 2: that we're going to be talking about today is a
Speaker 2: little different. So a lot of heart, a lot of pain,
Speaker 2: and a lot of hope. Tell me about the documentary
Speaker 2: Gather and why Jason Monmou decided that this film needed
Speaker 2: to be made.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the what you brought up, just being
Speaker 3: known as like an action star, you know, it's a
Speaker 3: misconception of who I am. Even going back to my
Speaker 3: first film that I directed, it had to deal with
Speaker 3: the atrocities that were happening on Native American reservations. I've
Speaker 3: made it my duty in many ways and in my
Speaker 3: art and my companies to kind of fight for justice
Speaker 3: and bring to the forefront things that are my concerns.
Speaker 3: And I think all the roles that I play, people
Speaker 3: kind of can think of me in a different way.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you know, when Gather It came by, those
Speaker 3: things are happening to even my own people in Hawaii,
Speaker 3: or just the things that have been happening and what
Speaker 3: has happened to our ancestors and the disconnection between our
Speaker 3: ancestries and our traditions, our food source. And so this
Speaker 3: film is extremely beautiful, and I if I can use
Speaker 3: my platform in any way to be able to bring
Speaker 3: something that's an honest human film and in true history
Speaker 3: and explanation to what has happened to many so many
Speaker 3: indigenous cultures. Right, I'm all on board. So when I
Speaker 3: saw it Blue my Hair Back, you know, I've seen
Speaker 3: it about five times. I love it. I just watched
Speaker 3: it against it I could be with you, and I mean,
Speaker 3: have you got a chance to watch it, Matt?
Speaker 2: Can I tell you something? I learned things watching it
Speaker 2: that I didn't know. I feel like any great documentary
Speaker 2: does that. Any great documentary, you know, choppens up the
Speaker 2: things you do know, but then it will always open
Speaker 2: your eyes to an aspect of an issue that you
Speaker 2: genuinely never knew before. What a lot of people may
Speaker 2: not know is how decimating their food supply was one
Speaker 2: of the things that the colony listed to destroy Native
Speaker 2: American populations, decimating their food, you know, polluting the way
Speaker 2: they eat, restricting them from living the way they lived.
Speaker 2: And you see those effects still affecting those communities today.
Speaker 2: And that's what you show in the documentary, which I
Speaker 2: found really fascinating.
Speaker 3: I mean, and how it ripples out, I mean, like
Speaker 3: it relates to EPHN, my own culture, which is ABCD,
Speaker 3: and like just shipping all the crab food that's coming
Speaker 3: over on boats when we were you know, we were
Speaker 3: island Earth, we were sent by ourselves in the middle
Speaker 3: of the ocean. I just find it that it's so
Speaker 3: disconnected from the natural food source that it's beautiful to
Speaker 3: be able to share a little bit of that and
Speaker 3: be a part of something like this. So, I mean,
Speaker 3: I definitely I'm very thankful that you watched it, because
Speaker 3: sometimes people won't get to do that. So I'm very
Speaker 3: thankful for that. But it's a Yeah, it's a beautiful
Speaker 3: film that I want to get out to the world.
Speaker 2: You showcase people who are putting forth solutions. You know,
Speaker 2: you're putting indigenous peoples in front of the camera. This
Speaker 2: isn't one of those stories where like the documentary filmmaker
Speaker 2: the executive producer makes it about themselves. This is a
Speaker 2: story about the people we follow, these amazing people who
Speaker 2: are saying, here's how we can combine science with our traditions,
Speaker 2: here's how we can move into the future. Here's how
Speaker 2: we can claim back out food supply. Why do you
Speaker 2: think it was so important for you to make sure
Speaker 2: that this film centered itself around those heroes as opposed
Speaker 2: to just you telling their story.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the best part about this thing, and
Speaker 3: like being involved because it comes directly from there. I
Speaker 3: felt like I was getting I felt like I was
Speaker 3: growing and getting therapy and the experience within the tribe.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what's beautiful about it is it's truly
Speaker 3: amazing filmmaking. And also the director just the way that
Speaker 3: he unfolds it in his storytelling process. So I mean,
Speaker 3: that's what makes just a great documentary in general.
Speaker 2: Before I let you go, I'm worried about you in quarantine.
Speaker 2: I know how crazy that can be. Here's my suggestion.
Speaker 2: You play music. I say you should do like a
Speaker 2: free concert every day, even if it's for thirty minutes
Speaker 2: with people live online.
Speaker 3: You like being quarantine, though, I feel.
Speaker 2: Like you like it. I was born in quarantine, Jason,
Speaker 2: you claim quarantine. I was born in quarantine, now, man,
Speaker 2: you know what I I grew up stuck in the house,
Speaker 2: partly because of a part time, partly because my grandmother
Speaker 2: was afraid to let me go outside. So I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm used to it, but I don't think I'm used
Speaker 2: to anything that's happening in the world. So stay strong, man,
Speaker 2: stay strong, stay he deal, my friend, don't ever threaten
Speaker 2: me with a hug. Jason, I'll take you up on it.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us on the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by.
Speaker 8: Searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcast. Watch
Speaker 8: The Daily Show week nights at eleven.
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