From our present moral perspective Columbus Day seems like a day of shame mainly because we committed genocide on indigenous peoples of the New World / Americas. Some cities and states Alaska and Maine have renamed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day.
Decree and sign into law:
1. Columbus Day as a Federal Holiday unless Indigenous Peoples Days is included as a Federal Holiday as well. Think of Columbus Day as a transitional holiday — a day or mourning and shame to remind us that the stain of genocide is with us every time we attack or undermine a foreign power. Of course, Italian-Americans and Italians world-wide can still celebrate Columbus as an explorer of the new world who also took slaves.
2. By taking Columbus Day off the Federal registry of holidays and making Indigenous Peoples Day the holiday instead we honor the people we killed and enslaved even to this day. The shame of Columbus Day can be honored instead by the indigenous peoples of the United States of America. By allowing states to keep Columbus Day and making Indigenous Peoples Day as a Federal holiday we begin to acknowledge our shame and mourn the losses of the genocide we committed as a nation against indigenous peoples and acknowledge and honor their heritage and traditions.
Continuing to honor Columbus Day which is a symbol of conquest and war over the native population and honors a heritage of continuous wars that the United States has been engaged in since.
Notable wars have been The American Revolutionary War, The 1812 War, and the Mexican- American War. Many people can name the wars we have been involved in in the 20th and 21st centuries: WWI, WWII, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, The Bay of Pigs Invasion, The Vietnam War, The Gulf War, The Bosnian War, Iraq War, and War in Afghanistan. Yet the United States of America has been continuously at war since 1775 except for a period of 4 years when we had an isolationist president (see Wikipedia link — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States).
Due to the current non-strategy of foreign policy as directed by the Trump administration and his xenophobia we are becoming a third world power (China Trade Wars). Trump is an example of the most wildly capricious patriarchy that has become chaos and is dangerous. Perhaps it’s time to end the constant resource wars and engage in diplomacy instead. Adding Indigenous Peoples Day as a Federal holiday while retaining Columbus Day as a day of shame, mourning and grief is more accurate with regard to the many resource (oil) wars the US has been engaged with in the late 20th century and currently.
