Holiday weekend today, everybody! What holiday? Why, the one everyone forgets about unless they are planning a weekend vacation or looking for something to go on sale: Columbus Day! Christopher Columbus was the Italian explorer who promised the queen and king of Spain he could sail around the world to India and make them a fortune in the spice trade. He ended up going to what is today the Bahamas, Cuba and Haiti/Dominican Republic. He thought he was on the other side of the world. No matter: there were plenty of local natives to exploit and resources to plunder, so same difference. I don't know about you, but it makes me feel like squeezing in one last barbecue before it gets too cold.
We still have the holiday, and it is still named after this guy, even though it is common knowledge now that he didn't "discover" anything, nor did he set foot on the American Continent. He got lost and didn't realize it, stumbled upon some other people's valuable islands, then claimed them (and the people who lived on them) in the name of European royalty. He thought it was India. In fact, they still call it the West Indies in the UK. By the way, those burgers look ready to me...
But this ended up being a far bigger deal than just botched cartography, the 1500s version of a major SatNav error. It became the leading edge of the sharp end of Colonialism/Imperialism/Commonwealth/ International Capitalism introduced to the lands these Europeans named America after some other Italian dude. SO we celebrate. Yay. And hey, will you pass that potato salad this way?
So why even have a Columbus Day? Tradition? The shapers of our Republic were eager to establish a Great American Mythos that distinguished it from European monarchies. George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and admitting it; Ben Franklin discovering electricity; Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims seeking religious freedom and thanking the Natives for saving their asses with a big meal; Betsy Ross sewing the flag; the National Anthem; star-spangled banner and fireworks on 4th of July; the Pledge of Allegiance; Custer's Last Stand. In order to glorify the ideals representing the United States of America they enshrined... (well, actually enshrouded) our history in idealized myths. The intention was to invent the America they wanted the world --as well as present and future American citizens-- to acknowledge, then to present this as the bright side of America. And it worked. Kind of. America was marketed as the Land of the Free. You could ignore the long, dark shadow it casts. Unless you, your ancestors or descendants were chattel slaves or some other exploited/marginalized group hanging out in that shadow, that is. Are those ribs done yet? Make mine extra sticky with that awesome sauce...
*Inserting here acknowledgement that, historically, the fight to recognize Columbus was a fight to recognize an and honor Italian heritage in America, and that this may still be how some Italian Americans view the holiday. Unfortunately, once it became part of the Great American Mythos, very few people think about Italians, Italian heritage, or Italian Americans on this day. So we are left with what he actually did, who he actually was as a human being, and the signature legacy of European domination of cultures and exploitation of resources that should no longer be a point of pride. DaVinci, Galileo, Marconi, Puccini, Michelangelo all would have better choices for Italians worth honoring that would have held up to the test of time. They just didn't have the American connection to establish Italians as rightful Americans (status that was denied them, being considered "immigrants"). The day being adopted was an Italian American victory, but that aspect of the day's history is not foremost (or even present) in the minds of the vast majority of Americans. It is the myth of Columbus "discovering" America.
Okay, so today we understand these myths to be myths, and there is a lot more consciousness than ever before about what really went on. So why is it STILL Columbus Day? Why aren't we calling it "Native American Day"? Or "American History Day"? Or "National Parks Day"? Or "American Family Day"?
My sense of it is that to change it is to acknowledge the lie, which acknowledges the implied truth: the celebration of the colonization and exploitation of a foreign land and people to glorify and enrich European powers which led to the eventual creation of a nation-state that carried on that tradition. That is an ugly truth. And THAT is why I am writing about this in my blog. Well, first and foremost I am writing about it because it IS my blog. :) But also because it shines a light on what is at the bottom of much of what I have been trying to express: the reason that "color blindness" is not a good strategy is because blinds white (and black) people to race-based transgressions taking place as a result of the institutional, systemic, and unconscious racism permeating American life, and that the consequences of this "innocent" racism are insidious and devastating for many Black Americans. And what is at the bottom of creating and cultivating such a culture? Greed. Simple and profound. Such acknowledgements are not only deeply painful for people of conscience; they are also "no beuno" for the American Brand. Ballpark frank with fixins? Don't mind if I do...
So "Columbus Day" it is, and "Columbus Day" it stays. For now. And yes, please: I WOULD like some baked beans on my paper plate. You gotta check out this new iphone I got in the sale. Hey, kid: nice toy ships! Man, I'm stuffed! Wait: there's berry pie à la mode? I think I have room!
P.S. ADDENDUM: In case you are wondering, I DO see a better America beyond these inauthentic symbols. I see it in The People: those willing to stand up, speak out, demonstrate, be incarcerated; the people willing to defend our Constitution and our nation against all true enemies, foreign and domestic. These are the defenders of the true ideals of America; all who risk censure, injury and death for their convictions in defense of where we need to go and where we've made it to so far toward the ideals of the Preamble of the Constitution. But these ideals are better treated as a compass than as a point of pride. It's when we use them as our True North, THAT's when we represent America at its best. (I credit my old friend Kevin for cajoling me into ending with a message of inspiration.) Peach cobbler? Really, I shouldn't...
P.P.S. SECOND ADDENDUM: Shame on me (TRULY) for not recommending the name be changed to what it really was intended to be in the first place: ITALIAN HERITAGE DAY.
Hi r.belander! No need to apologize. The commentary is for comments, which are all welcome, apart from trolls, and you are not one.
That being said, nope. While I do accept that the impetus and drive for establishing the holiday under this name was about honoring Italians and imbedding them firmly into the American Mythos, I would hold that the time of its inception and wide adoption was most certainly a period when the shaping of the Great American Myth was still taking place in earnest. This is about the story distorting history and becoming a different, clearer and less complimentary story informed by accurate history, not the history of the first storytellers.
Italians WERE marginalized and ostracized, no doubt,…
Hello grnwyndorf! Thanks, and I've been aware of this movement among states with large indigenous tribe populations. Very heartening!
Nope. I mean yes, a literal medieval European sailor and his crew stumbled onto the islands off the American continent (Amerigo never even sailed to the region, btw). And yes, this medieval Italian, living in a time when it was routine to torture other Europeans for esoteric questions of belief and a time when most European farmers belonged to the Lord of the Manor, for whom they labored, could not leave and were given "justice" by that local landowners decisions. Sound familiar? Anyways, yes this person conditioned to brutality, to serfdom and to a hierarchy of obligations vice freedom, was in turn unreasonable to the locals. He sought his "manor" as was the norm. It is as distasteful as watching…
Excellent, Al, thanks (due to Covid isolation I was barely aware it was October). Here in New Mexico there was a hard push and it has been widely adopted -- Indigenous Peoples' Day.