Students who have Monday off of school in recognition of Columbus Day are sometimes too grateful for the break, short as it may be, to question whether their university should still be affording respect to a man who colonized North America and murdered millions when he “discovered” the land.
Brookline, Cambridge and Somerville now celebrate the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day — a day of recognition for Native American heritage — in line with a national push to do away with the holiday celebrating Columbus.
Boston still gives federal employees the day off under Columbus’ name — an act of blatant disrespect for the approximately 15,097 Massachusetts residents who identify as Native American or Alaskan Native, according to the 2017 U.S. Census. The fact that Boston fails to follow the example set by surrounding cities is disrespectful to these people’s very existence.
These Massachusetts residents live in a country that celebrates a time in which, historically, millions of their ancestors were displaced and murdered. On top of that, over 2,000 of them live in Boston — a city that fails to take the progressive step its neighbors have in declaring the holiday unjust.
It’s difficult, sometimes, to advocate for something that doesn’t benefit you. Many people would advocate to do away with Columbus Day in a hypothetical situation, but as soon as they could potentially lose their day off, they fall silent.
Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day can’t make up for the crimes committed by the Columbus and his men, or by Europeans in America for hundreds of years thereafter — but it’s a better start than continuing to celebrate a day with his name in the title. Failing to see the fault in honoring Columbus’s actions make Boston’s current residents no better than the people who arrived here on the Mayflower 400 years ago, displacing millions.
It’s shocking that BU, as well, still calls the holiday Columbus Day. Yes, it is the perfect day for a break. Students are a month deep into the year and can barely see the light at the end of the tunnel that is Thanksgiving break — another problematic American holiday. But many colleges have dropped the title in favor of “fall break,” an ambiguous and PC way to give students a day off without explaining why.
Some high schools have even taken the step to do away with the name — schools that aren’t large institutions and don’t operate in liberal meccas. If they can do it, why can’t we? BU’s administration could take a small step to recognize its wrong and set an example for the rest of the city.
Simply changing the name of the holiday, though, isn’t enough. We shouldn’t get time off of school to honor Indigenous Peoples unless we’re going to put the time to use. If we don’t use the holiday to actively reflect upon the events of our past or the ways in which indigenous peoples are still struggling, we’re continuing to do a disservice to the people we have oppressed for the past 400 years.
Columbus is a source of pride for Italian and Catholic Americans, both of whom exist in high proportion in Boston. These groups are reluctant to let go of someone who has been a hero in their heritage for so long.
But while Italian and Catholic Americans are not persecuted groups, indigenous peoples are. They are the most impoverished racial group in the country, facing elevated rates of teen pregnancy, drug use and family disintegration.
Boston is stuck in a colonial-era mindset. Sticking with tradition is in our DNA. But the city cannot place its pride above the responsibility it has to make changes to include others. Students can learn about genocide in their history textbooks without dedicating a holiday to it.
