Indeed, the story of how Columbus Day came to be reflects a history of suspicion and persecution. In the not-too-distant past, Italian Americans faced the same kind of discrimination and violence experienced by other ethnic minorities. On the other hand, that thought process reflects a kind of zero-sum vindictiveness and is historically shortsighted in its own way: Italians, like Jews, were not fully accepted into the white people’s club until fairly recently in American history. On the one hand, one might say that Italian Americans have not experienced anything close to the historical and present-day suffering of Native Americans and that revising our hagiography of Columbus and honoring the sacrifices and contributions of Indigenous peoples is more important than sparing the feelings of one subset of white people. Photo: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images To many Italian Americans, canceling Columbus Day feels like canceling them and their history - and whether or not that’s true, it would mean abandoning a celebration of their role in the American story. Much of the pushback against Indigenous People’s Day has come from the Italian American community, and while some of the loudest voices against the change carry an off-note of racial resentment, they also reflect a legitimate underlying grievance. The difference with Columbus Day, however, is that there is also a community that would be harmed by this change: Italian Americans, the people the day is actually meant to celebrate. Opposition to his banishment from our currency stems if not from outright racism then from adherence to a warped, reactionary view of “tradition” and a pathological fear of change. Jackson has little popular constituency today beyond Donald Trump and other fans of authoritarianism and racism. Christopher Columbus has been dead for half a millennium Jackson, for some 180 years. In either case, millions of Americans would no longer be forced to participate passively in the canonization of someone who killed and enslaved their ancestors every time they withdrew money from an ATM or enjoyed a Monday off in October.įurthermore, both changes appear to offer those symbolic benefits without any real symbolic costs. Replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day feels eminently just in the same sense as replacing Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill: Not only do we strip a violent, racist historical figure deeply complicit in slavery and genocide of a unique honor, we bestow it on the people he harmed. It’s just one more division in a deeply divided nation, bitterly contested in spite of - or perhaps because of - the stakes being much more symbolic than material. Meanwhile, to the right, this push for change is further evidence that the woke left seeks to erase history and upend everything “real” or “regular” Americans hold dear. Photo: Howard Simmons/NY Daily News via Getty ImagesĬolumbus Day, like so many other staples of American civic life, has in recent years become a political flash point as well as a litmus test: The correct opinion in left-liberal circles is that the holiday celebrating one of history’s greatest monsters should be replaced with Indigenous People’s Day, as it has been in 14 states plus Washington, D.C., and some 130 American cities and counting.
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