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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"Acknowledge" is a weird word to use in this question?

I acknowledge that both are holidays. Columbus Day seems kind of stupid in light of what we know about his "discovery," that he wasn't even the first European to bump into North America, and that he was a worse-than-average human even considering the standards of his time.

But, all of that said, the holiday doesn't provoke strong emotions in me. Yes, European contact was horrible for indigenous peoples. But that was inevitable. Whatever mistreatment was inflicted by the Europeans, the impact of disease was always going to be several orders of magnitude more destructive than anything the Europeans could inflict intentionally.

I'm more sympathetic toward the sentiments behind Indigenous People's Day, but it feels artificial and contrived. It's not its own thing but is rather a reaction to Columbus Day; so there is still a European frame about the whole thing. [/quote]

Agree with this whole post. [/quote]

Columbus Day is also a contrived holiday basically invented as a reaction to discrimination against Italian Americans:

[url]https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/10/14/232120128/how-columbus-sailed-into-u-s-history-thanks-to-italians[/url]

But I think the point that discovery and settlement of North America was inevitable is a good one. We don't vilify all the other explorers.[/quote]

So [b]now[/b] we’re supposed to just ignore the ugly historical racism against Italian-Americans?

Talk about revisionist! [/quote]

Now? I'm not that old. I first learned about Columbus in the 80s. I only learned about Columbus then. I wasn't taught that the holiday was founded in response to horrors committed against Italian Americans.

How about we NOW do both? Just as we are finally teaching about Tulsa in 1921, we can teach about New Orleans in 1891. We can also teach that Columbus was a monster who didn't discover America, and died being sure that he had reached the spice islands.

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