FLASHBACK: Spurs’ Gregg Popovich on Christopher Columbus: ‘He Murdered. He Mutilated. He Took Slaves.’

USA's team coach Gregg Popovich gestures to his players on court in the men's semi-final b
THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images

As many Americans continue to celebrate Columbus Day, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was seriously triggered by the holiday last year, blasting Americans for celebrating “genocide,” “murder,” and “slavery.”

Popovich went on a tear last year on Oct. 10 — the day Americans have traditionally celebrated Columbus Day — and attacked the Italian icon from over five centuries ago.

“Columbus? He initiated a new-world genocide, that’s what he did,” Popovich ranted in a 2021 press conference. “Beginning with him, and what he said would follow, the annihilation of every indigenous person in Hispaniola, which was Haiti and the Dominican Republic today.”

“He took slaves, he mutilated, he murdered, and we’re going to say ‘slash’ and honor him?… It’s Columbus Day, that’s why they (schools) are off on Monday? Maybe there’s something I’m missing and I’m ignorant, but it makes me feel like they’re living in a phone booth, and they’re educating our kids. Columbus Day, and we’re going to honor that?”

Like most of his ilk, Popovich then went for the Hitler comparison.

“It’s like saying we should be proud of Hitler because we’re German, it makes no sense.”

WATCH:

Claiming Columbus is somehow the same as Hitler is just another example of the left’s lies.

Popovich wasn’t done attacking Columbus Day. That same year, the left-wing coach also excoriated the Alamo Heights Independent School District for recognizing Columbus Day, disgorging the same line of attack as he did in the press conference.

Curiously, the high and mighty, morally perfect Gregg Popovich has been utterly silent on the NBA’s multibillion-dollar partnership with China which is responsible for far worse human rights abuses than a dozen Christopher Columbuses could have wrecked.

China is responsible for murdering millions of people in its genocide against the Uyghurs, it typically enslaves millions of people to make western sportswear, and it routinely murders, mutilates, and tortures political dissidents.

Yet, the vaunted Gregg Popovich has been silent on these current, ongoing atrocities, preferring instead to attack someone who has been dead for five centuries.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston

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