Happy Native American Day”¦. No post office or government offices open, and some banks! I think we can all accept Native American Day while Columbus himself would probably agree a day named after him is really all to sketchy at best!
Change is hard and we still officially honor this day after Christopher Columbus? Give me a friggin break!!!
We are better than this. It is time to wake up and change the holiday’s name! Just as our nation’s capital needs to change the name of its professional football team change is sometimes necessary and good. We are an enlightened, brilliant country lead by intelligent and educated human beings. Why is this still happening?
Are you here to tell me we still “celebrate” the man who lost his navigation and stumbled onto a whole people (who were not lost by the way) that “he thought” was a part of the West Indies, so he called them Indians?!?
President Benjamin Harrison established a celebration of Columbus in 1892″¦400 years after he landed in the Bahamas. The holiday started being celebrated on the second Monday of October in 1971. Time to give it up don’t you think?
Currently, 16 states do not recognize it as a national holiday. And I am proud to say my home state of Minnesota is one of them. The Minneapolis City Council had approved a measure in April “To reflect upon the ongoing struggles of indigenous Peoples on this land, and to celebrate the thriving culture and value that Dakota, Ojibwa and other indigenous nations add to our city.” Yes! See ya Columbus.
This is just another example of us, as a culture, waking up to indifference. Another example of how it is time for us to think thru some of the decisions of the past and move forward into what is “present now”. The time to change is now.
Unfortunately we have lots of work to do yet. We still have a whole culture of people still living separate from the rest of us on reservations. Right in the center of the most powerful country in the world. A whole culture of people that earn less than $4,000 per household annually. A suffering people with alcohol and drug abuse, gangs, and domestic violence as a common way of being. How can this be?
Some highly ranked officials of this country believe the US is but a business. Well, if that is true”¦and the United States of America (Home of the Free) were a business and this kind of apathy/indifference were happening to the employees? Oh boy! No amount of coaching for this business, focus groups, or workshops could keep them from a class action lawsuit.
The last I checked WE are ALL one nation (Together) under God.
“¦Or is that a slogan to enhance commerce?