In today's issue of the Daily, there are two op-eds — one for and one against the university officially changing "Columbus Day" as an academic holiday to "Indigenous People's Day" to celebrate indigenous peoples. There has been significant support of this change in the past, especially last semester when the TCU Senate passed a resolution urging the university to make the switch. Faculty voted down the resolution for reasons that remain unclear. Now the choice between Columbus Day and Indigenous People's Day has reemerged as a number of TCU Senators have brought the issue to the front-end of campus discussion and debate, building off of the work of campus activists and alumni. The Daily believes that the proposed change to Indigenous People's Day is not just long overdue, but it is also a materially and symbolically important gesture toward revealing the tensions that still exist from the past, right here on campus and in the history that we must relearn.
The history surrounding Christopher Columbus has been reduced to a nursery rhyme, "In fourteen hundred ninety-two / Columbus sailed the ocean blue." By incubating this false history in the hearts and minds of young schoolchildren, including those with indigenous backgrounds, we are rewriting and undermining the painful reality of history. Columbus has become a figure built up for idolization whenever needed from the District of Columbia to Columbus, Ohio. Against the facts, he becomes a far darker figure, one whose name is not affiliated with discovery or courage or "Columbia," that fanciful American alter-ego of utopian democracy. But instead, Columbus is revealed for what he really was — a plunderer and slaver whose mission to the New World contributed to the genocide of an entire civilization. Columbus Day as a holiday acts as a celebration of the colonization of many indigenous lands that continue to occur under Western imperialism.
Our university has contributed to the false Columbus historical narrative by continuing to celebrate this holiday, and by refusing to acknowledge that it sits on lands that once belonged to indigenous people. Tufts needs to recognize its role in America's often painful history. As many of the activists and TCU Senators spearheading this change have stated, changing the name of this holiday will not make up for the oppression that indigenous people have experienced, but it can help refocus historical and institutional narratives away from the painful histories that Columbus and others perpetrated to native people.
While we still refuse to admit to this past, when we gloss it over, erase it and treat Columbus Day like a non-issue, we let ancient wounds in our country fester. It must be the voices of indigenous people that are amplified, lifted up and given space. Indigenous People's Day is not just about the indigenous people in the Americas, but those whose homes were colonized in South America, Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. For people who see all of this as another chapter in political correctness, Indigenous People's Day should be an opportunity to let compassion dominate instead of fear and judgement to begin the work of coming to terms with Columbus's America, our America. History cannot be changed — but only by admitting to the evil at the heart of America's origin can we begin to understand and ultimately heal.
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