Opinion of "once a year" Native American activists

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

You mean the people who hate Thanksgiving? Mega HPs.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

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.

^^^
More or less, and I'd like to add that attacking Columbus in support of Native American rights is like attacking Hitler for invading the Sudentland.

My question for both the "once a year" and "every day of the year" activists is the same, though: what at this point, besides addressing poverty and inequality in the present day Native community, can be done? This jack just can’t be put into the box. That’s why I find them so annoying.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

More or less, and I'd like to add that attacking Columbus in support of Native American rights is like attacking Hitler for invading the Sudetenland.

By that, I meant that attacking Columbus is like missing the main point. IE, ignoring the Holocaust and saying "Hitler's worst action was invading Czechoslovakia."

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Okay but Columbus' worst action was genocide, sooo...

But he wasn't the only perpetrator of it. I already have posted on the subject in another thread, but my main point is that these "once a year activists" just assume that Columbus was the only person in those three hundred years to have done such a thing. I was agreeing with DeadFlagBlues, not arguing with his point.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Okay but Columbus' worst action was genocide, sooo...

But he wasn't the only perpetrator of it. I already have posted on the subject in another thread, but my main point is that these "once a year activists" just assume that Columbus was the only person in those three hundred years to have done such a thing. I was agreeing with DeadFlagBlues, not arguing with his point.

It's more like Columbus day is an obscene holiday because it celebrates a legacy of colonialism and genocide. He becomes the symbol. Not that Columbus was a particularly stand up guy, mind. You should read into his spell as governor of Hispaniola (?) if you haven't already.

This is a post that I have made earlier this evening in which I articulated my point stronger.

Why do people blame Columbus for everything? Columbus was a brutal dictator in the manner that he governed his colony, instituted the first slavery in the New World, and even once had a woman paraded naked and then had her tongue cut off for dissent, among other things. But is he responsible for the entire genocide of the Native peoples? Is he to blame for the spread of diseases that wiped out so many cultures? Surely that would have occurred no matter who arrived in the New World.

But yes, Columbus Day in particular should be wiped away. I don’t see why it should be replaced with an alternative holiday, but we certainly shouldn’t celebrate it. If Italian-Americans wanted a holiday, I’m sure we can find another. Al Capone day anyone?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Columbus Day, besides from the obscenity of its celebration of a nasty tyrant, is also a celebration of inner city political corruption. IIRC, wasn't it founded as a cheap method to gin up support from Italian American voters?