THE CRUX OF IT: FUCK Columbus
The idea of celebrating Indigenous People’s Day was first proposed nearly 40 years ago, when a delegation of Native nations to a U.N. conference in Geneva passed a resolution.
Berkeley, Calif. and South Dakota became the first city and state, respectively, to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day in the 1990s.
Cities including Seattle; Minneapolis; Spokane, Wash.; Boulder, Colo.; Albuquerque; Portland, Ore.; St. Paul, Minn.; and Olympia, Wash. followed suit over the next several years responding to calls from activists to honor indigenous communities and their history instead of Christopher Columbus.
On Thursday, Vermont Gov. Peter Schumlin signed an executive proclamation marking the second Monday of October as Indigenous People’s Day. According to the proclamation, the day is to recognize that the state “was founded and is built upon lands first inhabited by the Indigenous Peoples of this region.”
The City Council in Denver, which observed Indigenous People’s Day last year under a temporary proclamation, made the holiday permanent after a unanimous vote Monday.
The move came three days days after City Council members in Phoenix voted unanimously to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day. While it won’t replace Columbus Day, because Phoenix already doesn’t celebrate that as a city holiday, hopefully it will overtake the other egregious celebration.
Push back against the awakening shift away from the holiday is largely coming from Italian American organizations that contend that it highlights the contribution that Italians brought to the country. They also stress that seeking to either re-assign or eliminate the day is an insult to Italian culture.
Surely, there are actual laudable Italians that could be and should be celebrated. The struggle to gloss over the truth of the the wrongly characterized journey of Columbus is real. A legacy of genocide, slavery, brutalization, rape, avarice, and mass introduction to disease cannot be the legacy that Italian Americans (who are honest about the facts) should feel the need to continue.
There is also the blatantly and continually overlooked fact that HE NEVER EVEN SAW THE LAND THAT WE INHABIT NOW AND THAT PRAISES HIS DISCOVERY!
LITERALLY…
HE LITERALLY NEVER SAW OR TOUCHED FOOT TO SOIL Here!!
THE AWAKENING CONTINUES…
REJECT THE FALSENESS
Public Enemy touched on this subject eloquently back in 1994 with the song Hitler Day.
HITLER DAY
“500 years ago one man claimed to have discovered a new world. “Five centuries later, we the people are forced to celebrate a Black Holocaust.”
“How can you call a takeover a discovery?”
[Verse 1]
Mass murderer, this side of the planet
Most people take it for granted, 502 and still doin’
Give a reason I’m hatin’, October celebratin’
The dead of the black the brown and red
Sick and tired of being sick and tired
Don’t jump to conclusions before I clear the confusion
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, I’m talkin bout’ Columbus
Hit me off
[Hook]
I don’t hate nobody
But this day’s as crazy as Hitler Day
I don’t hate nobody
But this day’s as crazy as Hitler day (crazy)
I don’t hate nobody
But this day’s as crazy as Hitler Day
I don’t hate nobody
But this day’s as crazy as Hitler Day (crazy)
[Verse 2]
Hangin’ heads and snappin’ necks
Splittin’ up kin, makin’ families wrecked
Turned this planet to a sewer
Provin’ to all just a lil’ grab, will do ya’
Or do us, so my disgust
Got credit from the ones that read it
Ain’t blind to the fact of a whack headline
And if you didn’t, pay the paper no mind
[Pre-Hook 1]
That’s how I feel
(That’s how you feel)
That’s how I feel
(That’s how you feel)
That’s how I feel
(That’s how you feel)
That’s how I feel
Yo’ shit is mad real
[Hook]
I don’t hate nobody
But this day’s as crazy as Hitler Day
I don’t hate nobody
But this day’s as crazy as Hitler Day (crazy)
[Refrain 1]
My, my, my, my, celebrate my
As all days go by
[Verse 3]
Some thanks for the givin’ when times are hard
And some got the nerve to pray to God
It ain’t about that turkey that get me sick
It’s that take from the indian trick
Lookin’ pretty grim when they takin’ the pill
From the sucker seekin’ somethin’ to kill
Now he got a day to celebrate, ain’t that a trip
Cause the Indians ain’t got shit
[Pre-Hook 2]
Let em know, let em know
(I don’t hate nobody)
Let em know, let em know
(I don’t hate nobody)
Let em know, let em know
(I don’t hate nobody)
Let em know
[Verse 4]
May 31st when it comin’ it hurts
Remember the dead and it makes me curse
When they don’t include 100 million of us black folks
That died in the bottom of boats
I can carry on bout the killin’ till dusk and dawn
But war ain’t the reason they gone
[Verse 5]
Fourth of July a goddamn lie
When did we ever get a piece of the pie
Gotta whole day comin’ without no pay
Cause a job can’t gimme no play
Even had enough I huff and puff
At brothers sellin’ the stuff
I’m takin’ in Washington’s, Lincolns, and not their birthdays
Payback for ’em makin’ us slaves
[Pre-Hook 1]
And that is real
(That’s how you feel)
And that is real
(That’s how you feel)
And that is real
(That’s how you feel)
And that is real
Shit is mad real
[Hook]
I don’t hate nobody
But this day’s as crazy as Hitler Day
I don’t hate nobody
But this day’s as crazy as Hitler Day (crazy)
I don’t hate nobody
But this day’s as crazy as Hitler Day
I don’t hate nobody
But this day’s as crazy as Hitler Day (crazy)
I don’t hate nobody
I don’t hate nobody
I don’t hate nobody
I don’t hate nobody
[Outro]
We don’t hate nobody because of their color
We hate oppression
