Breaking the Narrative of Columbus Day

Towns and cities all over the country, including one here in Texas, are taking Columbus Day off the calendar. 

Just today in Austin the City Council voted to replace the holiday of Columbus Day with Indigenous People Day. This new holiday is supposed to be about American Indians. I thought about the fact that they did that, in our very own state capital, and got curious. Apparently there have been many cities here in the U.S. cities like Seattle, Los Angeles, Denver, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, that have done the same thing.

Personally, I don't really care. I always thought we celebrated the indigenous people in America with Thanksgiving. So many of us in East Texas have Indian blood, who knows who is how much Indian. Where do Indians or Native Americans turn into the Incan Empire that ruled much of this area in the 1600's? Where is that line?

I think we are getting a convenient, politically correct version of history. We all know what happened to the Indians was wrong, but this type of thing happened a long time ago all over the globe. This still goes on in other places around the world to this day. We just need to love each other now.

Changing it is not a greatest idea. Mostly because there are so many issues in this world. Why bother spending effort on things like this,where there are so many other horrible atrocities going on.

On the other side, it's a national holiday, so this vote is sending a message to Washington, that these people should not be marginalized. Perhaps this one issue could be the thing that changes people's minds that our country isn't so racist. If the entire town takes the easy assumption, that the thing that happened to the Indians was bad, then now we aren't bad. What happened to the Native American people was bad, but what does Columbus have to do with that, when the times that these things happened was so far apart.

So is it a good idea or not to change the holiday? Recently lots of stories about Columbus just being lost, and coming to America, rather than discovering America, which are true, have been told. There were people here, of course, but to the people that migrated here from from the rest of the world, they didn't even know "The New World" was here until Columbus.

It's a slippery slope, but I am pretty sure we don't have to worry about towns in East Texas changing the name anytime soon. Do you think they should? Or are you like everyone else, you just want Monday off? Comment down below. Below what I think might be a racist picture of Rita Ora, but she might be like me, and have just a little Indian blood.