The long-overdue task of kicking Columbus overboard

 

I realize that many people think I’m ungrateful, or that I'm part of an effort to ruin Maine for white people. As I urge Maine to do and be better on sensitive and important issues (as I do also for people and organizations for which I have affection and connection — a perfectly natural and reasonable thing), what often gets lost are the times I mention what I love about the state. I do say nice things and recognize good things, even if it doesn’t feel like it (to some of you).

So, let me take a moment to thank Portland (and Bangor, Orono, and Brunswick) for designating the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, thus kicking Christopher Columbus to the curb. Each city formally made the decision last week, following what Belfast first did in 2015.

(Now, cue angry emotions from people with a tenuous grasp of history and/or an unhealthy attachment to tyrannical and cruel Italians. I wonder, though: Do the folks who keep lifting up Columbus also dig Benito Mussolini?)

As I’ve pointed out before, this entire nation was primarily built upon two rather nasty things: the enslavement of Black people and the stealing of land from Native Americans. The displacement of Native Americans was accompanied by genocide, which is why the original people who lived here before white people did the massive land-grab number somewhere around one percent of the U.S. population — far smaller than the roughly 13 percent Black people account for.

Basically, Native Americans and enslaved Africans (and their descendants) got totally different deals, but pretty much on par with each other for heinous treatment. One was seen as a pest and impediment to white progress; the other was seen as an important resource/tool for building wealth — neither was, strictly speaking, considered quite human. In my mind, given the raw deal Native Americans got, the very least we can do is honor them with a day and take it away from the man who was a key part of introducing colonization, exploitation, and victimization by Europeans to what we call the Americas.

So, I applaud the communities in Maine that have made this move. However — isn’t there always a “but” in these kinds of things? — there was this from the Portland Press Herald's report last week:

“While the initiatives in Belfast and Bangor saw no public opposition, Italian-Americans, including representatives of the Italian Heritage Center, opposed the proposal in Portland. They said Columbus Day is less a celebration about one individual and more a celebration of Italian-American heritage.”