Princeton drops Columbus Day for Indigenous Peoples Day
Monday is Columbus Day all over this great land, including all of my Mercer County friends in Trenton, Hamilton, Ewing, West Windsor, Lawrence, Hopewell (borough and township, when are you going to merge?), Pennington, East Windsor, Robbinsville, and Hightstown.
So to all of you out there, have a happy Columbus Day! Go buy a washer-dryer.
But for my Princeton friends? Well, that’s a little different. Residents there won’t be purchasing washerdryers, because there are no Indigenous Peoples’ Day sales at local appliance stores. (Cue sad horn.)
That’s right: Princeton has kicked Columbus to the curb and instead will celebrate the indigenous people of America.
Well, kind of. Because in true Princeton “let’s not offend anyone” fashion, the town council - which made this change in September - isn’t “replacing” Columbus Day.
“We took great care in the wording of this ordinance that it does not say anywhere that it is replacing Columbus Day,” said Councilwoman Leticia Fraga, according to a Princeton Patch article. “It is our wish, the Civil Rights Commission’s wish to introduce this ordinance and recommend that Princeton recognize the second Monday in October to be recognized as Indigenous Peoples’’ Day not instead of.”
So that’s nice, but come on: It’s clearly meant to knock Columbus, the slave-owning, Native American-killing, accidental “discoverer” of the Americas (he was all those things) down off his perch. Let’s also note, for a moment, how modern scholarship also places this native Italian as a secretly Jewish explorer seeking to help Jews liberate Jerusalem from Muslim control while also attempting to find a safe haven for the 800,000 Spanish Jews who were being kicked out of the country because they refused to convert to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition. And … let’s also not forget the guy was a product of his time, and we can’t judge him based on 21st century standards.
How about we just leave it at this - the guy had layers, OK?
And to toss him away like Princeton did - that’s the second New Jersey municipality to do so after Newark - doesn’t feel right to me, though the rising tide is certainly on the side of, at minimum, downplaying Columbus. Many states have made the switch. It’s now Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Florida, Hawaii, Alaska, Maine, Wisconsin, Vermont, and New Mexico, and tons of towns and cities across the country.
And to be clear - I’m not saying we shouldn’t be celebrating the people who were here first. I mean, obviously we should. They were pretty much wiped out by European settlers and … well, you don’t need me to tell you the history. Of course their story should be told and remembered.
But Columbus … I mean, strip it all away, and the dude was the first European to get here, you know? I mean, granted, it was accidental, and he apparently died still believing he had landed on the far shores of Asia, but whatever. Take Columbus out of the picture, and who knows what would’ve happened, for better or worse. The guy is dramatically important to the story of the history of the world. I mean, he’s easily top 10, and that’s probably selling it short.
Point being: There’s certainly room to celebrate Columbus and his voyages along with celebrating the people he “discovered” here. This doesn’t need to be an either/or proposition. But by laying Indigenous Peoples’ Day atop Columbus Day on the calendar, we’re doing just that.
In short: Can’t we get two days to buy washer-dryers out of all this? Is that asking for so much?