Hmmm: Transform Columbus Day

As you enjoy your day off today (if you get it off), consider the history of the man for whom this holiday is named.

From a 2006 interview by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now of Glenn Morris, Attorney and Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Colorado at Denver.

Columbus sailed for the Portuguese on the Gold Coast of Africa, brought back gold and slaves to the Portuguese slave market in Portugal. That’s why when he arrived in the Caribbean, it became so easy for him to resort to his old practices and began to enslave Indian people to bring to the slave market in Seville. And so, we believe that Columbus as a national icon is a mistake and sends certainly the wrong message to schoolchildren about what is heroic about the history of this hemisphere. Certainly, the heroism of Columbus does not warrant a national holiday. In fact, he wasn’t a hero. He was a slave-trading Indian killer.

In 1992, Berkeley, CA decreed that Columbus Day would no longer be celebrated and would be replaced by Indigenous Peoples Day. Today there are several groups that raising awareness of the atrocities that Columbus committed with the goal of transforming Columbus Day into a day in which we celebrate the indigenous people of the Americas.

Some groups and individuals have in turn defended Columbus celebrations. Michael Berliner of the Ayn Rand Institute said Western civilization brought “reason, science, self-reliance, individualism, ambition, and productive achievement” to a people who were based in “primitivism, mysticism, and collectivism”, and to a land that was “sparsely inhabited, unused, and underdeveloped.

I'll go with Indigenous Peoples Day.