EDITORIAL: What will it take to make Columbus go away?

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Schools and businesses in some states throughout the nation were closed on Monday in observance of Columbus Day, the U.S. holiday that has historically celebrated Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World on October 12, 1492. In some places such as the city of Seattle, however, the move has been made to rename the holiday Indigenous People’s Day to recognize the nation’s true original citizens.

The push to replace the outdated and factually incorrect holiday began in somewhat recent history as the story of Columbus and the reverence for his “discovery” of America lost its magic. Thanks to history books such as “Lies My Teacher Told Me” and “A People’s History of the United States,” that don’t follow the classic rose-colored glasses view of American discovery and history, more people are abandoning their elementary school-founded beliefs that Columbus was the great and powerful discoverer of America who should be honored.

Instead, Columbus Day today is full of articles with headlines that read, “Christopher Columbus was a lost sadist,” “More Cities, States Ditch Columbus Day Name For Indigenous Peoples’ Day” and, if you’re Seattle’s Matthew Inman, creator of the humor and comic website, The Oatmeal, your article’s headline will read simply, “Christopher Columbus was awful (but this other guy was not).”

Why this shift in thinking? It is becoming common knowledge that Columbus did not, in fact, find America. It had been “found” long before him by indigenous populations who were then decimated by European disease, war, greed and the sexual appetites and wants of his crew. The Americas had also been visited by other Europeans before Columbus’ fateful mistake-turned-victory.

In fact, Columbus Day was only made a holiday in 1937 after President Theodore Roosevelt was pressured by the Knights of Columbus to make a holiday idolizing a Catholic man.

These realizations are far overdue and are so late to be realized due to the biased writing of elementary school American History books that are “marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies,” according to “Lies My Teacher Told Me” author James Loewen, who wrote that passage on the Amazon page for his book.

History needs to be taught differently, especially in elementary schools. It needs to be correct, unbiased and can’t shy away from the difficult or ugly parts of colonialism, imperialism and the European settlement of the Western World.

Columbus Day should also be officially removed as a federal holiday and replaced with Indigenous Peoples Day.