Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire Website Posts Racist Video Mocking Native Americans for Columbus Day

Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire Website Posts Racist Video Mocking Native Americans for Columbus Day

To celebrate Columbus Day this year, right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro’s website posted a video apparently excusing ethnic genocide by depicting Native Americans as cannibals and savages who weren’t tamed until white Europeans came to America and took their land.

The Daily Wire’s animated video begins with a caption that sarcastically reads, “The North American indigenous people are a noble people…” Then, a group of Native Americans are seen slaughtering and even eating each other. But alas, there is hope for these evil, murderous savages, as the clip then cuts to a very Caucasian looking Christopher Columbus arriving on the North American continent and taming the indigenous people. He does this by teaching them how to construct buildings, raise cattle, and farm crops — though, the video does not include the ethnic genocide, land-stealing, and ? that Columbus and his crew are known by many for.

The second caption reads “1492-2017” and a montage of civilizational progress is shown — suggesting that this positive progress was the sole result of white Europeans showing up in America and killing off much of the native population.

The cherry on top of this racist sundae is a text-on-screen segment in the video that reads, “List Of Contributions.” The Native American side of this list includes dreamcatchers, tomahawks, and cannibalism. On the other side of the screen, the “After Columbus” contributions include iPhones, cars, airplanes, electricity, women’s suffrage, human rights, “The Simpsons,” and about 15 other things.

While Shapiro likes to bill himself as a conservative pundit who is vehemently opposed to racism and the alt-right, with videos like these, it is hard to understand why, as white nationalist leader Richard Spencer often espouses the exact same talking points promoted in this video. Additionally, Shapiro has in the past made openly racist comments about Arabs. “Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb ? and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock,” tweeted Shapiro in 2010.