A few weeks back, I wrote an article in the Review titled Columbus Day and revisionist history (Vol. XXVIII, Issue 3). The Review subsequently received a letter to the editor which took issue with my article.  The following is the original letter from Samuel Rose ’10.

Mr. Oliver Renick,

I wanted to share with you some of my thoughts in regards to the article that you wrote for the October 15th edition of The Cornell Review entitled “Columbus Day and Revisionist History”.

First, I must take issue with the very nature of the article itself.  As can be can reasonably assumed from the opening two paragraphs of your article, you were likely not present at the October 8th rally at Ho Plaza.  So initially we have the obvious problem of you attempting to comment on an event that you neither witnessed nor experienced.  Instead, what follows is a very oversimplified and problematic summarization and critique of the October 9th article in The Cornell Daily Sun entitled “Rally Decries Crimes of Columbus; Stresses Importance of Native Cultures” by Margo Cohen Ristorucci.  Because of this distance from the event itself and a likely biased lense through which you interpreted the situation, there are some serious errors in terms of the issues and ideas that the presenters were trying to convey.  I will address these issues subsequently in turn, but as one of the people who helped to organize the event, I do take great issue with this misrepresentation of the event; whether it is ignorantly or intentionally done.  I also find it quite odd that while you are reporting on a report about an event to which you did not attend, you then have the audacity to criticize the quality of journalism of the Daily Sun.  For me, because of its ridiculous nature, that just takes the cake as a new low in journalistic integrity at Cornell for any newspaper. (continued after the jump)

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