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 is also posted on TheGrio.com
