Why you shouldn't celebrate Columbus Day

[Barbarella]

I don't celebrate anything concerning Ol' Christoforo Columbo & his Day. It's about as important as Groundhog Day.

Veteran's, Memorial & Labor Days have more meaning than dorky Columbus Day.

I agree that Columbus Day needs to be turned into Indigenous American Day or First Nations Day or something.

I would also love to see our currency redesigned to show the visage of an important IndigAmerican alongside the President/Founding Father, Andrew Jackson replaced with someone else on the non-native side. Perhaps Teddy or Franklin Roosevelt or non-POTUS' Fredrick Douglas or Susan B. Anthony or something. The bills' format would be redesigned with one face on the left & another on the right.

Also, monuments in Washington dedicated to the First Americans, reparations or aid, more Natives running for office.

We took it, we need to give it back & if we're going to live here & have a big country here, we need to pay the rent.

Integrate all things "Native" into the USA.

A bit radical? Perhaps...but nonviolent, peaceful & unifying. The USA with still exist as it does today but we need to recognize & respect the ones before us.

Ideally, I think ALL of the Americas should do this!

[Art Vandelay]

I suppose now that The Oatmeal mentioned this, it's going to whip half the internet into a frenzy over it for a few weeks or so. Kind of like what happened with Nikola Tesla a while back.

[Sigmaleph]

My, my, this here Anakin guy.

I don't think that's it either.

In all seriousness I always wonder why nobody mentions Amerigo?

I've wondered this myself.  The most I ever heard about Vespucci was back in school.   Since graduation, I've heard/seen mention of him next to never.

They did name a couple of continents after him, though

-He didn't "prove the earth was round". The ancient Greeks had already done that and calculated its size as well. Even if they hadn't, Columbus never reached Asia by sailing west as he had claimed; Magellan was the first to do that.

Even worse: The reason Columbus wanted to sail west was that he thought the Earth was much smaller than what the Greeks calculated. He was wrong and they were right; he only survived because he lucked into America.

[Ironchew]

You guys sound like the Jehovah's Witnesses that are always looking for an excuse to force others not to celebrate anything. Let people celebrate what they want. If you don't want to think of it as Columbus Day, call it something else. If you have a problem with Columbus Day being a federal holiday, lobby your representatives to repeal it.

99% of what's wrong with the world today is rooted in people forcing their ancestors' grievances on each other. It may be human, but it's certainly not rational.

[Sigmaleph]

Have you actually read the comic that started this thread? Because "Call it something else" is exactly what it suggests.

[gyeonghwa]

The problem with that "forcing their ancestor's grievance" statement is that for some groups of people their ancestor's grievance directly influence their own grievance. Unless you think we live in a post racist world or some shit.

On topic:

Something about the fact that Columbus went to his grave thinking he landed in Asia (and I think he specifically thought he made it to Japan) unsettles me. I mean, there were already European traders in Asia. Why is it that he didn't notice their description of Asia didn't match his?

[SpaceProg]

Columbus went to his grave thinking he landed in Asia (and I think he specifically thought he made it to Japan) unsettles me.

He thought he made it to India.

[Old Viking]

You know, I bet he was surprised to find that there was a city in Ohio with the same name as his.

[Witchyjoshy]

Have you actually read the comic that started this thread? Because "Call it something else" is exactly what it suggests.

That would require him to actually get down off his high horse, which at this point would be a fatal drop.

[Shane for Wax]

You guys sound like the Jehovah's Witnesses that are always looking for an excuse to force others not to celebrate anything. Let people celebrate what they want. If you don't want to think of it as Columbus Day, call it something else. If you have a problem with Columbus Day being a federal holiday, lobby your representatives to repeal it.

99% of what's wrong with the world today is rooted in people forcing their ancestors' grievances on each other. It may be human, but it's certainly not rational.

Reading things that are linked in the first post of a thread is a good thing. Do not be afraid to broaden your horizons, boyo.

[The Right Honourable Mlle Antéchrist]

99% of what's wrong with the world today is rooted in people forcing their ancestors' grievances on each other. It may be human, but it's certainly not rational.

Except Natives are still treated like absolute shit, even today. On top of casual racism, they have to deal with the government seeking new ways to screw them out of their land and indigenous rights. Not only that, but they're still suffering the long-term effects of colonialism: Poverty, loss of culture, languages facing extinction, etc. And then there are the still-living survivors of residential schools and racist, sexist 20th century laws designed to "kill the Indian in the man". I'd love to see you try to tell my late grandfather, who was robbed of his Indian status after he and his siblings were placed in a Catholic orphanage and wound up losing all connections with their father's culture (yet still had to deal with racism based on having visible Native ancestry), that these are just his "ancestors' grievances".

This isn't ancient history -- it's an ongoing problem, and glorifying one of the men who set all of this in motion is in pretty bad taste, if you ask me.

[kefkaownsall]

iron chew a tribe was literally sterilized to death in the70s

[gyeonghwa]

99% of what's wrong with the world today is rooted in people forcing their ancestors' grievances on each other. It may be human, but it's certainly not rational.

Except Natives are still treated like absolute shit, even today. On top of casual racism, they have to deal with the government seeking new ways to screw them out of their land and indigenous rights. Not only that, but they're still suffering the long-term effects of colonialism: Poverty, loss of culture, languages facing extinction, etc. And then there are the still-living survivors of residential schools and racist, sexist 20th century laws designed to "kill the Indian in the man". I'd love to see you try to tell my late grandfather, who was robbed of his Indian status after he and his siblings were placed in a Catholic orphanage and wound up losing all connections with their father's culture (yet still had to deal with racism based on having visible Native ancestry), that these are just his "ancestors' grievances".

This isn't ancient history -- it's an ongoing problem, and glorifying one of the men who set all of this in motion is in pretty bad taste, if you ask me.

This. Just to show that it's still relevant, many of the Native American programs got cut when the shutdown happen. Saying that this is just past grievance is erasure. Besides, you don't just sweep past grievances under the rug anyways that's just rude.

[Osama bin Bambi]

Relevant:

[Ironchew]

Besides, you don't just sweep past grievances under the rug anyways that's just rude.

And that is how you repeat all the tragedies of history.