There has always been some controversy surrounding Columbus Day – and for good reason. Do we really want to be celebrating a settler who colonized and contributed to the marginalization of the indigenous American population? How do we show that we actually care about indigenous Americans if we still celebrate this outdated and harmful holiday?
Thankfully, some people have moved to celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day, including some states in America. But federally, the government only recognizes Columbus Day. I still get that day off at work. We still see it on our calendars. Even if you want to ignore it, you can’t. It’s a federally recognized holiday – a day the government decides to honor every single year.
I’ve never stopped feeling icky about Columbus Day as a holiday. I knew Christopher Columbus wasn’t a good person, yet we still worship him throughout history. But, to me, Columbus represents the colonization of the Americas.
Colonization brought about the forced expulsion, death, and enslavement of Indigenous Americans. It also brought about the enslavement of West Africans. And that doesn’t get into the rape, sexual assault, and other violence perpetuated against people of color in the name of colonization. It hurt millions of people – something I can never overlook.
Also, let’s be clear: Columbus didn’t “discover” anything.
The pre-colonial Americas always existed. He just didn’t know it existed – and I think we would have been better off if things stayed that way. You don’t have to look far back into history to see how much harm colonization has done. Our current institutional racism, from everyday microaggressions to police brutality to inaccessibility to healthcare, all stems from that history of racism. So many people suffer, but you can sadly see that it traces back to our ugly history.
Even the current administration carries this same sort of sentiment. We’ve allowed racism and bigotry to breed in America, and, while a holiday didn’t cause it, it’s a symptom of a larger problem. The way people talk about immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, is dehumanizing (which is sadly ironic because the first settlers in the Americas were immigrants themselves – well, “invaders” is a better term). How we treat Black people in this country, the disregard and violence, still occurs. And this country treats Indigenous Americans deplorably, from erasure to violence that goes unmentioned in the news. I could go on.
We need to change a lot of things about this country, and I know changing a historic holiday won’t change things. But what Columbus Day represents does matter. It feels like a slap in the face to remember how we talked about him in school, how we’ve honored him, and seeing the holiday as quintessentially American. As a writer, words matter, and something that seems as simple as naming a holiday matters. We can easily change this, too, which makes it more egregious to me that we haven’t. Of all the issues facing our country, this is a no-brainer.
It’s long past time we stopped celebrating Columbus Day.
We need to face America’s ugly history of racism and genocide. We can’t forget that we forced an entire group of people off their homeland, forced them to assimilate, and created a structure that keeps many Indigenous Americans impoverished. As much as we like to tell the rose-colored story of the “history” of America, starry-eyed lovers of freedom didn’t build this country. Maybe they felt this way to an extent, but that doesn’t explain the genocide, expulsion, and slavery, among other atrocities committed on this very land. And with efforts to erase history, now more than ever do we need to push back and remember what happened – especially the ugly parts.
Getting rid of Columbus Day or, even better, replacing it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, is symbolic and only one small stepping stone. But it’s a stepping stone nonetheless, and that makes it important. We need to prioritize creating a better world – something everyone deserves.
Photo by Josh Johnson on Unsplash
