Christopher Columbus Or Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer who raped and pillaged his way through the Bahamas, has been celebrated as a federal holiday in the United States since 1937.
For nearly 100 years we have celebrated Columbus Day on the second Monday of every October. There have been debates to replace this questionable holiday since 1977, only half a century later there is finally a replacement. In 2021, President Joe Biden officially recognized Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a national holiday to be celebrated on the same day as Columbus Day.
Though Indigenous Peoples’ Day was recognized as a national holiday it is not federally recognized, so this holiday is not replacing Columbus Day merely making them coexist together. On the state level, only a dozen states and 130 local governments have decided to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Days, and 11 states have chosen to celebrate both. The rest of the nation continues to celebrate Columbus Day.
Should the other 23 states honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day as well? Yes, they without a doubt should.
The states that still celebrate Columbus Day argue that Columbus Day is a holiday celebrating Italian American heritage due to Columbus’ Italian origins. This is a stupid argument. First off, Columbus never stepped on American soil, he didn’t even reach North America. So he has nothing to do with America, nor its heritage. Columbus actually landed in the Bahamas and went on a streak of pillaging, raping, and murdering. So why in the world would Italian Americans want to celebrate him of all people for their heritage?
There are so many better figures that Italian Americans could be celebrating rather than a rapist and a murder who couldn’t even accomplish what he set out to do. Not to mention again, Columbus wasn’t even an American, so it baffles me that celebrating him is somehow celebrating Italian American heritage.
It would make more sense to celebrate and acknowledge the Indigenous peoples of North America. European explorers, like Columbus, raped, enslaved, and slaughtered the native people of North America. Yet we still celebrate Columbus instead of acknowledging the people that were nearly wiped off the face of the Earth by Europeans.
We have celebrated Columbus and his vile acts for far too long. It is time we all move on and celebrate something that actually makes sense and bring more acknowledgement to an underrepresented and long oppressed group in America.
