Opinion of "once a year" Native American activists

[Mechaman]

Meh, I'll go with lean FF here, even if I think a lot of them do it mainly for their own vanity.

We need to be reminded that we have this nation because some dumb who was probably boffing the Queen of Spain had enough financial backing to go half way around the world with three little ships with the only instructions being "go west, eventually we'll hit dry land!" who also happened to have several different diseases (probably a combination from all the matrons, exotic "savage" women, and probably even a few dudes that his contemporaries have swept under the rugs.  I mean let's be real fair, Columbus was a very naughty boy. . . . . very naughty) at the time.

I can certainly understand the reasoning behind wanting to be rid of Columbus Day.  However at the same time, I cannot but help but think that many people, particularly the guilt conscious white liberal brigades, do it mostly to satisfy their own social justice egos and as a vain reminder to Native Americans that "hey we're not racist guise!"  Selecting some dumb who lived in an era when people thought that disease was a pro-Jesus thing or something or other as a figure of outrage while avoiding the issue most other times of the year really helps them forget that their enlightened Ivory Tower predecessors (yes I'm going there again) were also a bunch of mass murderers, slavery sympathizers, rapists, pillagers, genocidal maniacs, authoritarians, child molesters, hypocrites, christian supremacists, greedy goldmongers, and etc etc etc.  But of course, it is better for us all if their narrative of socially awkward Pilgrims who loved everybody and their descendants were consistent defendors of the weak, the poor, and the hungry and oppressed of all races instead of the foaming at the mouth genocidal extremist fundamentalist maniacs they really were is sold to our schoolchildren so they have the misguided belief that white elites can be trusted.

SO yeah, I guess that about sums up my thoughts on the matter.

[Mechaman]

I share Mechaman's sentiments. The desire to end Columbus Day strikes me as an ineffectual gesture that allows white liberals to forget about the awkward past; the cause of so much guilt in the lives of whites with college degrees. Meanwhile, Zapotecos and Nahuas are abused as waged slaves before being deported to Oaxaca or Puebla and Lakota children are stolen from their mothers to be raised by white foster parents for specious reasons. The indigenous peoples of the Americas are not noble savages or cultural artifacts or mythical beings, they're still oppressed and immiserated and the "once a year" Native American activists are silent about the plethora of everyday problems facing the indigenous in the US and ancient farming communities in Mexico. Ultimately, this is because "once a year" Native American activists are brand activists: they don't care about living Indians, they care about their identity as self-aware Americans.

^^^^
This.

American History seems to be privileged white people reminding us all that they are both a) white, and b) privileged.