by Kerry Dougherty
Well, yesterday was Columbus, er, Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Did you roast a turkey? Exchange gifts? Hang a flag? Cook out?
Probably, like me, you worked. If you’re a state or federal employee chances are you didn’t do anything special to recognize whatever holiday it is that gave you a day off.
I’m confused. Which is it: Christopher Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day?
According to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine:
Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day. Working with our Virginia tribes to obtain long overdue federal recognition is one of the highlights of my life. We celebrate you today!
— Tim Kaine (@timkaine) October 10, 2022
No similar wish to those of Italian extraction for a happy Columbus Day. Odd.
Fresh off his blackface scandal in 2019 Ralph Northam declared the second Monday in October to be Indigenous Peoples’ Day, piggybacking it onto Columbus Day.
While it was a nice pandering gesture to Virginia’s Native American tribes and a transparent attempt by the badly damaged Northam to erase his image as a racist, legally it meant nothing. Only the General Assembly can declare state holidays.
According to the Code of Virginia Section 2.2-3300 yesterday was more than just Columbus Day:
The second Monday in October — Columbus Day and Yorktown Victory Day to honor Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), a discoverer of the Americas, and the final victory at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, in the Revolutionary War
Outside of urban areas with strong Italian neighborhoods where Columbus Day parades are still held, there are precious few traditions associated with the old holiday, let alone the new unofficial one.
There’s nothing wrong with setting aside a day to honor the culture and traditions of Native Americans. I’m in favor of more holidays. But it is necessary to shelve poor old Christopher Columbus to do it?
The Age of Exploration, which began, they say, with Christopher Columbus’ voyages across the Atlantic and discovery of the Americas, is not an era that holds much fascination for me. But surely we can all agree it took tremendous courage to sail off into the unknown.
I suspect in the next few years, when woke Americans finish tearing down statues, renaming streets and schools, the Columbus Day holiday will vanish, too.
George Orwell predicted as much in his chilling novel, 1984:
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
Today is Indigenous Peoples Day.
Please remove Columbus Day from your vocabulary.
May this year be the last we even have to make that distinction.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) October 10, 2022
This column has been republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited.
