Columbus Day disgusts me.

It disgusts me like moving tables and accidentally putting your fingers on someone's gum, like people who smoke, like stepping in dog-shit, like having to clean up someone else's vomit, like ass-to-anything. I love this country, but there's a long list of shameful ways we conduct ourselves with regard to various sensitive topics, and the fact that we're still equating Christopher Columbus with Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. (as the only two non-presidential individuals to be honored with federal holidays in their names) cannot be left off of that list. We might as well add a holiday for whatever day in 1619 the first shipment of African slaves was brought to the Virginia colony, or days glorifying rapists and practitioners of biological warfare. Because, just in case you haven't brushed up on your history since the lies your first-fourth grade teachers taught you, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT COLUMBUS DAY IS DOING.

I don't mean to sound unpatriotic, but Columbus and his crew were basically TERRIBLE TERRIBLE HUMAN BEINGS. Let's recap: He begged the royalty of Spain for a shitload of money to find a faster route to sail to India for spices or whatever shit they were trading in at the time. He gets HOPELESSLY FUCKING LOST, to the point where the journey has taken like three times longer than expected, and his whole crew is ready to make him walk the plank. Then someone's like HOLY SHIT I SEE LAND and they forget they were ready to kill him. Now, Columbus has some knowledge of India...he HAD to know that the land he had stumbled upon was, in fact, nothing like India, but rather than fess up to the fact that he had fucked up, he just started calling the indigenous peoples in this "New" world [JUST BECAUSE YOUR PASTY ASS DIDN'T KNOW IT EXISTED DOESN'T MAKE IT NEW] Indians to save face. Then, when he and the whole posse of greedy Europeans he summoned decided that the indigenous peoples were doing more of the "being in the way" thing than the "ensuring that the idiot White people didn't kill themselves" thing, they started a HUNDREDS OF YEARS LONG tradition of kicking them out of their homes. When they wouldn't leave peacefully, the SYPHILIS-RIDDEN sailors started raping the women, and the tribes were given gifts of SMALLPOX-INFESTED BLANKETS. 

And they called the Natives "savages." For the next five hundred and counting years, these people have been "in the way" of progress and modernization and wealth and greed. I suppose they're the only people in this country who have been a "problem people" for longer than Blacks have. And I just don't fucking understand what about this man or anything he started possibly deserves celebration. What is the justification for this holiday? HAPPY IMPERIALISM DAY! Happy Hey, We Got All Kinds of Great Knowledge from the Natives and then Raped Them, Killed Them, and Drove the Survivors Away Day! Happy Tap Dance All Over the Little Guy's Back Day! Happy We Will Never Ever Give Two Fucks about Minority Cultures Day! Happy Capitalism Was Built on the Backs of Racialized Minorities AND IS STILL THRIVING ON THEM TO THIS DAY Day! 

Get the fuck out of my face, Columbus Day. I can't believe he's still being lauded as a national hero. There is blatant disregard for historical accuracy...and then there is this. And the worst part is, most Americans will never learn anything but the rosy stories our elementary school teachers told us. Most Americans will never see anything wrong with Urban Outfitters's Navajo flask and 973947390847 other cultural misappropriations designed to both take money from and make money for the descendants of the very people who tried their damndest to destroy Native American culture in the first place! 

Sadly, I'm not kidding. Right, because Native Americans TOTALLY need more people to contribute to the stereotype that they're lazy alcoholics.

How can we ever expect to develop tolerance for other cultures when we still GLORIFY their destruction? WHAT ARE YOU DOING, AMERICA?!  



I just posted this video on Facebook, and Facebook informed me that 9 other friends/pages I've liked posted about Columbus day: all but one was some sort of pathetic outreach of consumer culture begging you to go shop Columbus Day sales or asking what you were doing with your day off. I bet no one was stopping to think about what we're actually celebrating and why we shouldn't be.