Today is, and always will be, Columbus Day — and should be acknowledged as such
Christopher Tremoglie
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Today is Columbus Day; it is not Indigenous People’s Day. It is not any other day left-wing cultural assassins want to make it. Despite these radicals’ attempts to reshape our nation’s culture to align with their values and beliefs, the second Monday in October is, and will always be, the holiday recognized to celebrate the achievements of Christopher Columbus.
It’s a day of significant cultural importance for many Italian Americans that originated in response to one of the country’s most egregious acts of bigotry and discrimination. President Joe Biden acknowledged in a proclamation on Oct. 6 that the holiday originated after 11 Italian Americans were killed in New Orleans in one of the largest mass lynching incidents in our nation’s history.
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“In the wake of this horrific attack, President Benjamin Harrison established Columbus Day in 1892,” Biden’s statement read. “For so many people across our country, that first Columbus Day was a way to honor the lives that had been lost and to celebrate the hope, possibilities, and ingenuity Italian Americans have contributed to our country since before the birth of our republic.”
But while tragic, this also diminishes the magnitude of Columbus’s achievements. Regardless of the contemporary historical revisionism associated with Columbus, he is unquestionably one of the most influential figures in the history of the world. Word of his discovery of the Western Hemisphere on Oct. 12, 1492, to the civilized world in Europe altered human civilization forever. It opened the door for a “New World,” which would not have existed without the efforts of Christopher Columbus.
This is an indisputable fact, and it is why he deserves to be recognized for the historical and cultural icon that he is. And it is why the holiday still deserves recognition and celebration. Left-wing cultural assassins have tried to tarnish his legacy by emphasizing Columbus engaged in the common behavior at the time, including the Indigenous people who lived on the American continents.
Moreover, others have tried to diminish Columbus’s accomplishments by highlighting that he didn’t discover “America” or that Indigenous people lived on the continent for centuries before Columbus arrived. These are historically accurate claims. It is true that Indigenous people lived on the American continents and were warring among themselves, enslaving, pillaging, and killing each other in a continuous battle for resources and land long before Columbus arrived.
Additionally, other historical research found that the Vikings “discovered” North America centuries before Columbus left on his journey. But neither of those things changed the fact that the courageous exploration of Columbus was the catalyst for the Age of Exploration — a feat which, as mentioned above, forever changed the course of human civilization. That is why Columbus Day still deserves recognition and should still be celebrated.