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Indigenous
Peoples’ Day
is gradually replacing Columbus Day, and we as a culture are here for
it. In fact, we have been for quite some time. This is a day of
remembrance, a day to honor the ancestors and elevate the original
people who walked this land.
It
is only fitting — in this time of post-Floyd racial reckoning
and a coming to terms with a shameful whitewashed American history
and a legacy of genocide — that people renegotiate their
relationship with America. This process includes a rejection of
symbols and monuments to colonialism, theft, rape, plunder and mass
murder.
This
is likely why President Joe
Biden
recently reversed
Trump-era environmental protection cuts
of sacred Indigenous spaces and signed
a proclamation
marking the first time a president has acknowledged Indigenous
Peoples’ Day as a national commemoration.
“Our
country was conceived on a promise of equality and opportunity for
all people — a promise that, despite the extraordinary progress
we have made through the years, we have never fully lived up to,”
Biden’s proclamation reads. “That is especially true when
it comes to upholding the rights and dignity of the Indigenous people
who were here long before colonization of the Americas began.”
From
its inception, Columbus Day has been problematic at best — a
holiday in honor of white supremacy, to celebrate a man who
“discovered” a land that had been inhabited by ancient
civilizations for as long as 23,000
years.
Columbus’ “discovery” brought on centuries of
Indigenous genocide, African enslavement and global colonization. Let
us talk frankly here. It was the holiday that made Italians white and
truly American — after being regarded as an inferior race
facing discrimination
and even lynching
— when there are many other
Italians
worthy
of honor.
And
let us remember the armed
white vigilantes
who guarded the Christopher Columbus statue in Marconi Plaza in
Philadelphia when Black folks and racial justice activists sought its
removal. When armed white supremacist thugs are the last line of
defense for Columbus, what more do you need to know about Columbus?
As statues of Columbus, Confederate terrorists, enslavers and
colonizers are being toppled and beheaded — from Boston,
Massachusetts
to Bristol,
England,
it is not enough to declare what we abhor. The question is, what do
we wish to uphold, and who do we hope to uplift? What are we building
and who are we supporting?
With
over
a dozen states
and the District of Columbia celebrating the alternative to Columbus’
Day, Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a perfect example of reclaiming
history and centering the lives of those who are often rendered
invisible.
And
losing millions of lives, having your land dispossessed, your
children kidnapped and placed in boarding
schools
designed to kill Indian language and culture — this is enough
to render you invisible to the mainstream white society. After all,
sports team mascots mocking Native people are still a thing, with the
Washington
Football Team
changing its racially offensive name just last year after corporate
sponsor FedEx demanded the change. Society behaves as if Indigenous
people no longer exist, or as if they couldn’t care less.
Indigenous
Peoples’ Day is a concept that should resonate with Black
people. Black people are among Indigenous people in the Americas and
around the world, and this is a long
history.
As the late Rutgers University scholar Ivan
Van Sertima
taught us, the African presence in the “New World”
predates Columbus by centuries.
Honoring
the culture and history of Indigenous people means honoring the
ancestors. “One thing that makes Native Americans different
from Whites is that most of us view our ancestors as close as our
families today,” tweeted
Native American lawyer Brett
Chapman,
whose relative Standing
Bear
was the first Native American to win civil rights in the U.S. “I
see all the injustice done to my ancestors like Standing Bear and
know that was something my family suffered. It’s more visceral
for Natives.”
Chapman
recalled what his great-great-great-grandfather Chief
White Eagle
told an Alabama church of racist Southerners in 1883: "He said
they were selfish, he wasn't Christian and Native Americans don't
believe in Hell because Hell is, in fact, living in America with the
Whites."
But
Indigenous People’s Day is more than just remembering history.
Our very survival as a planet depends on following what the ancestors
did as stewards
of the land
who protected the Earth for thousands upon thousands of years, until
the white man depleted the land, the resources and people — all
for profit.
Indigenous
communities hold over
half of the world’s land,
with 5% of the world’s population protecting 80%
of the world’s biodiversity.
The communities have legal rights over only a small fraction of that
land and are under threat. Community and Indigenous lands have lower
deforestation rates and store a quarter of the world’s carbon
stock, making these lands crucial to fighting climate change. And the
knowledge that Indigenous people have gained over the centuries is
helping us understand
weather changes.
This
is why we must welcome Indigenous Peoples’ Day. If we want to
know where we are going, we must understand and honor the people who
came before us, and on whose land we live.
This
commentary was originally published by The
Grio
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