Columbus Day used to be a big deal, said Katie Powalski in the Orlando, Fla., Sentinel. In school, we used to have "a lesson on how Columbus 'discovered' America, often followed by a room party or patriotic assembly." Now kids are being taught about how Columbus' arrival was promptly followed by the extermination of native populations. "If this is the direction the next generation is going, how long can we really expect this national holiday to even exist?"
Instead of celebrating Columbus Day, said Aisha Brown in Examiner.com, maybe we should be observing Indigenous People's Day. Enslavement and disease wiped out the Taino people Columbus met on the island of Hispaniola, and when there were no longer enough Indians, the trans-Atlantic African slave trade ramped up. "Native American history is our history," so it's about time we learned more about it instead of glorifying Columbus.
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