Happy Columbus Day everybody
 

Here's to another year of celebrating not-finding-America-first and slaughtering countless indigenous people! Or: My DMV is closed for this? I need to get my license renewed!

Can anyone explain why Columbus Day is still celebrated? The man has been exposed to be a fraud both as a "heroic" figure contextually and and as being the "first" to discover America historically (that honor, ignoring the fact that there were already people here, goes to the Vikings, as far as we know).

My theory is it's to give government workers a day off in October, since there isn't any other holiday to assign it to and there's probably some unwritten rule stating that there should be at least one work holiday per month. But I mean, there's plenty of worthier holidays that federal workers aren't given off (I'm thinking of MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY for one), why should this one be maintained?

EDIT: Also my university insisted on calling this the "Fall Holiday" specifically to avoid mentioning Columbus. Maybe they should change the name to that?

I'm with Noncon on this, and by that I mean I'm with Mr. Rowland.

You have any idea how many labor unions would go on strike if people stopped celebrating Columbus Day? At least one. People in my family work in it.

But yeah, it's mostly a union thing as far as I can tell. As an Indian, my dad and I get chuckles out of fake-arguing about the importance of the day that celebrates a man who is held indirectly responsible (through his 'discovery') of the murder, rape, and squandering of our lands :D

They could officially change the name to something else. But I'm sure there are lots of conservative members of Congress who would vote against the resolution "just because" Columbus is supposedly part of our "cultural tradition", though I'm not sure how an Italian sponsored by the Spanish Crown 150 years before the Puritans arrived is part of the U.S.'s cultural tradition, but anyway.

Ooh, I forgot that Ferdinand and Ysabella were also largely responsible for the Spanish Inquisition. Another laurel for Columbus to be hired by such respectable persons!

You know, I think it would carry more weight on the not celebrating front if schools weren't still filling our kids' heads with the fabricated bullshit we've known wasn't true for decades. I had a lady in my class a couple of years ago who wanted to know what history book I had because her little daughter was coming home going on about how great the guy was and spewing all that crap and she wanted to set the record straight.

In fact, his name wasn't even effing Christopher Columbus. It was Christofo Columbo. We anglicized it.

It just drives me nuts that the American school system paints the guy as a shining hero when he was absolutely nothing but a lying, murdering bastard.

In which the Holiday heralds Dissent
 

I'm not sure how much Cristobal Colon himself was those things. One might argue that he is not directly responsible.

What is this Columbus day everyone's talking about? >_>

Happy thanksgiving to any canadians on this forum!

In honor of Colombus Day I'm going to go to my neighbor's house kill him and take his land.

It's what he would want.