Should you really celebrate Columbus Day?

Today is Columbus Day, where many Americans celebrate Christopher Columbus arriving in the New World way back in 1492. Some even like to celebrate it as a day of Italian-American culture and heritage, but if you want to get technical, Italy wasn't a country until 1861, and Columbus was actually Genoese.

Columbus also didn't discover the New World, as many people celebrating today probably believe. There are records indicating that Norsemen (Leif Ericson) travelled to present-day Newfoundland around the tenth century, which was before Columbus sailed his Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria across the Atlantic.

In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl also embarked on his Kon-Tiki expedition, where he sailed on a raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands to prove that ancient peoples, pre-dating Columbus, had the ability to travel across waters and inhabit new lands.

I'm also just going to point out that Columbus never stepped foot on the mainland of North America. His travels were focused more on the Caribbean islands and the coastline of South America -- no where near present-day America.

You can argue, as many have, that Columbus didn't discover the New World because, you know, there were already people living there before he arrived. And it's because of his interactions with these indigenous populations that so many different groups have begun movements against Columbus Day.

Why?

Well, I like to refer to it as "a horrible excuse to hide history and ignore all the genocide that was unleashed against indigenous populations." Because that's basically what happened. You just never hear about it because people don't want to admit to the atrocities that happened in the past, or they're too ignorant to attempt to understand why this disgusting holiday is still celebrated.

One of the largest movements against Columbus Day in the USA is lead by the American Indian Movement (AIM) who argue that his arrival brought absolutely nothing good to indigenous people that were already present on the land he supposedly discovered.

Europeans that came along with Columbus not only brought infectious diseases that killed off countless natives, but they also carried out acts of warfare, enslaved their populations, attempted to assimilate them, and if there was any opposition, the native populations were tortured and/or killed.

To put it simply, Columbus and his fellow Europeans brought a genocide onto the native populations that they stumbled upon.

On Columbus Day people are celebrating a history of colonialism and enslavement that ravished indigenous populations. So before you go out celebrating today, maybe you should stop and think about the history behind this so-called holiday.

Is this really something you want to be joining?

Maybe you could instead opt to celebrate one of the many alternative holidays that are emerging into the mainstream American culture. For example, in Berkeley, California, today is known as "Indigenous Peoples Day" and commemorates those that were living before Columbus arrived.

Instead of celebrating a part of the past ripe with imperialism, slavery and mass murder, stop to think about the reality of the situation.