Three-day weekends are good.
But this one needs another reason for being.
Isn't it time we stop the disgrace that is Columbus Day?
As is astutely summarized by author Jack Weatherford here, and very well diaried by Kossack Winter Rabbit here, Columbus should not be considered a hero.
An important historic figure? Yes.
But no hero, and not deserving of his own holiday.
I know that in reality he was not acting in a manner all that out of the ordinary for his time. Yet this does not, cannot, erase what we have learned since about the reprehensible nature of slavery, let alone genocide. And knowing what we know today, believing what we claim to believe, about the rights of all humans, we cannot possibly make any serviceable excuse for celebrating the man as a heroic figure. To do so is an affront to all that America should or would stand for.
Like many Americans, I myself have some native American blood flowing in my veins, along with european strains, and really, who knows what else. Also like most Americans I was raised on a great many false images about the man for whom this Monday has been set aside. I believed them with admiration too. Yet now, having long ago read the truth about what he did after landing here, it has been many years whereupon this day I just find myself with a sick feeling in my stomach.
To celebrate this day is to mock and disgrace the sacrifices made by every protester of the civil rights era, every soldier who ever defended the U.S., indeed every American, be they black, white, brown, yellow, red, or purple, who truly grasps and cares for the nation of America.