The Columbus Day Fallacy

Closed for 

 Indigenous Peoples Day

(Columbus Day)

I do pro-bono consulting work at career center in Oakland, CA. As I stopped in today, I was appalled to learn they were closed for Columbus Day. With the serious financial problems this agency, and so many other city, state, and federal agencies are having, why do they continue offering a 'paid' holiday in honor of an invader, murderer, and robber of the Americas? Fascinating! The last time I worked for an agency that took this day off, I posted a sign on the front door with a picture of a Native American with these exact words, closed for Indigenous Peoples Day (Columbus Day).

We were taught in school that Columbus discovered the Americas, but there were people already living here. People who were forced into slavery. So many of these people died from overwork and disease, that Queen Isabella of Spain authorized the African slave trade. As a result, more Africans went to Latin-America than the USA.