It got me to thinking, though, about Indigenous People's Day. It used to be Columbus Day. Now a lot of people feel a lot of different ways about Christopher Columbus. But the important thing is that he was an individual, and thus it's possible to feel affection or esteem for him. A faceless mass of Indigenous People, though? It's too bloodless to inspire positive or negative responses, really. And the substitution on what used to be Columbus's day just makes them look like objects of pity.
I figured these were deep thoughts, and was still thinking about how to put them across, when I found something similar also expressed in, of all places, a Sunday Hi and Lois. Is it something in the water, or something in the air?
2 comments:
June is National Indigenous History Month in Canada. National Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21, the Solstice) is dedicated to the First Nations. On September 30, we've had The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, more usually known as Orange Shirt Day (nobody looks good in orange), also known by some as our National Day of Shame.
Every "indigenous" group at some point migrated from someplace else -- usually displacing older, more indigenous populations in the process -- the term doesn't refer to the original inhabitants of any land.
November is transgender awareness month.. oh never mind that when we actually have a list of 2SLGBTQI Days of Significance Calendar. Good Lord! Some things you have to see to believe
https://egale.ca/awareness/2slgbtqi-calendar/
As far as turning Columbus Day into Indigenous People's Day we couldn't agree with you more that it's far easier to admire a person rather than an amorphous group. If you look up a history of Christopher Columbus it turned out he wasn't a particularly benevolent character and he never did make it out of the Caribbean where he treated the people of Hispanola very badly. But tradition being what it is why take away the myth beloved by American Italians and many others?
Of course, the next thing we must consider why is it that military people get all the statues anyway? Everybody likes a nice equestrian statue but wouldn't it be better to see people like Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Thomas Edison, Jackie Robinson, Henry Ford, Mark Twain or any number of other completely unknown heroes elevated to bronze rider status? They'd be monuments we could relate to.
Hi and Lois get it.
Down here November is Native American Heritage Month, as designated by the first President Bush in 1990. It doesn't take over the calendar in the same way National Indigenous History Month seems to up there. The truth is that February as Black History Month is the only one that most people seem to pay attention to. As far as adults go, that is. Schools might push this stuff more than I've noticed, and in fact some almost certainly do.
Of course "indigenous" is a relative term, at best. We've had all of history to notice that people move around.
The term "2SLGBTQI" is a warning in and of itself. Too long, not written for human memory. I note with amusement that August has Gay Uncle Day. Seems a bit excessive for the number of people who have gay uncles (I say as someone who does.) As for Butch Appreciation Day, you could really troll by putting up pictures of Bruce Willis's character from Pulp Fiction.
The idea of glorifying amorphous groups appeals to HR departments and virtually no one else. It's a matter of admiring those who have no flaws, because they don't really exist.
There actually is a statue of Mark Twain at Logan University in Missouri. A few others too, I think. Might be some public statues of other people on the list. As long as there's some public enthusiasm for it all is good.
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