Holiday for those without maps
I had to swing by my bank early Monday morning
to grab my allowance for the week only to find about twelve people just
milling around. One man was complaining that the bank was late in opening
for the business day.
Mark Blackburn
That is when I had the great pleasure
to remind these people that the bank was closed for a holiday. I received
twelve blank stares for a minute or two until I finally told them it was
Columbus Day.
Most schools, our own campus included,
do not even bother to close for this so-called holiday. No big parades,
no great car deals, no discount day at Levitz.
What did Columbus do to deserve a day?
Sure, one can argue that Columbus discovered
America, but anyone who has taken a history class past the second grade
knows that Columbus was the first from Spain to find this continent, but
he hardly discovered anything.
Norse and Viking sailors had used the Hudson
Bay area as a water way for hundred of years, and various Asian cultures
had crossed the frozen Bering Strait thousands of years before that. So
how do you discover a place that already has people living there?
If I walked into my neighbors house, planted
a flag and claimed the home in my family's name, I would be arrested. That
is what many consider Columbus, a criminal.
Many Native-American groups place Columbus
on the same level as Hitler, with both men leading a culture genocide
and enslavement of a people.
Does it matter that Hitler was deliberate
and Columbus was a fool who got lost and bumped into this continent by
mistake? Not in my opinion.
Should the man be honored for his courage
to buck conventional thought? Should he be honored for striking out across
the water at a time most feared sailing off the edge of the world?
Yes to all of the above.
Does he deserve a holiday? No.
Perhaps we should honor all the great
explorers of the past and just go with Discoverers' Day. We folded Lincoln
and Washington's birthdays into President's Day, so why not do the same
with Leif Erickson, Columbus, and Lewis and Clark. Why not have America
Day for Amerigo Vespucci the Italian map maker for whom this country is
named.
Columbus was just a guy who got lost on
the way to go shopping in India. Why celebrate that?
It is time to get rid of this outdated
holiday that speaks more to the ignorance and brutality of history than
to its accomplishments. |
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