I was recently checking out the calendar on my kitchen wall to see what my wife and I had scheduled for the upcoming three-day weekend, and I noticed that instead of “Columbus Day,” my calendar had “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” written on the bottom of the square designated Monday, October 14.  I was quite displeased.

Back in my day, everyone celebrated Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day.  We celebrated Columbus for his fortitude and bravery.  We celebrated him for his adventurous spirit.  We celebrated Columbus because he discovered America and set in motion what would turn out to be the greatest nation in the world!

Christopher Columbus, with his originality in thought and inspiring courage, was quite an appealing character.  He made all Americans proud, particularly Italian-Americans, who shared his heritage. 

As part of my Jewish experience, I learned that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered all the Jews of Spain out of their country by no later than July 31, 1492.  Columbus set sail for the new world on August 3 of the same year.  Even in the darkness of Spain’s Jewish expulsion, there was still the flickering light of a better future one day in America.  Yes, Christopher Columbus had something for everyone.

I remember when Columbus used to be fun.  Who could forget “In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” or the “High Silk Hat” children’s song that ended, “Christopher Columbus, now whaddaya think of that?”

The late 20th-century attacks on Columbus have been unfair in my opinion.  For one thing, the Columbus critics have been using a 20th- and 21st-century measuring stick on a 15th-century man.  More importantly, Christopher Columbus never endorsed genocide, and historians are split on whether or not mass murder crimes were even committed under his leadership.

The most common criticism of Christopher Columbus is that he was the first Western European explorer in the New World, and therefore he needs to be vilified because of what followed him.  This is too much of a stretch for my comfort.  If you want to have Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and your wish is to demonstrate victimhood, then why not make it in on December 29, the date in 1890 that the U.S. Army undisputedly massacred Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee Creek?  Just don’t have Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Columbus Day, or in place of it!

The first city to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day was, you guessed it, Berkeley, California, back in 1962.  Since then, the list has been expanding by leaps and bounds.  It has already happened in certain states, in schools, and even on many of our wall calendars!  Slowly, I fear, our values, our history, and our way of life are all slipping away.

This movement to vilify Christopher Columbus reminds me of the attempted toppling of the Columbus statue in Grant Park by rioters, in July of 2020, in my hometown of Chicago.  The whole saga is seared into my memory, as is the actual removal of the statue by order of leftist mayor Lori Lightfoot.  And it didn’t just happen in Chicago.

So the big question is, would a President Kamala Harris do everything in her power to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day? 

On Friday, October 8, 2021, President Biden was the first American commander-in-chief to mark an Indigenous Peoples’ Day that would coincide with the upcoming Columbus Day.  V.P. Kamala Harris later that month shared, “Since 1934, every October, the U.S. has recognized the voyage of the European explorers who first landed on the shores of the Americas.  But that is not the whole story[.] ... We must not shy away from this shameful past.”

Did I mention that Kamala Harris grew up in Berkeley?  Now you do the math.

Image: Daderot via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.