Why on earth wouldn’t you celebrate the real deal - these guys were seriously awesome
tbf it’s pretty impressive stuff; first you steal the land then you bring in the slaves to work it.
It stands up against the best in all history.
Because you can’t make up a two-line ditty about them that’s easy for schoolchildren to pronounce.
Down here (PR, US Territory) we celebrate Dia de la Raza, or dia de la Hispanidad, or Day of the Encounter or Discovery Day.
The USA is as far as I know alone in officially designating the commemoration of the events of 12 Oct 1492 by Colombo’s name.
I don’t think many people are celebrating Columbus on Columbus Day, their mainly celebrating a day off from work. I’ve seen Italian communities make a big deal out of it even though Columbus claimed America for Spain because he was Italian. But I don’t think anyone makes much of a deal about the Columbus discovering America thing. He gets some credit for venturing out to find the westward route to Asia, and we all know he missed, and at best he was the first European to hit the North American mainland, although year by year the evidence mounts that a Viking did that first anyway. But mainly it’s just a day off from work and some sales.
Failed at that.
Here in Boston you’d get conflict between the Italians and the Irish, each of which have their own holiday. Columbus Day is big in the Italian North End and Evacuation Day (which coincidentally falls on March 17th) is celebrated by the Irish. If you removed Columbus Day from the calendar, we’d be in imbalance again.
Solution: Sophia Loren Day-September 20th.
I thought the former colonial powers were infamous for whitewashing their past and downplaying numerous atrocities.
I’m not up on my history.
If, by magic, we could part the veil of time to ask Christopher Columbus himself if he should be celebrated as the guy who discovered a new continent, would he say, “What? Preposterous! I sailed to India, which was right where I expected it!”
Yeah, he was neither the first European nor did he get to the mainland in NOrth Ameria. 
I think the best way to describe what Columbus did is that his 1492 voyage essentially marked the end of the medieval era in Europe and the beginning of the colonial era worldwide. This was definitely not a good thing for people indigenous to all the areas that were colonized. He’s definitely not a hero, but I think it’s also incorrect to deny his role in ushering in the era of globalization, which was not accomplished by the initial settlers that crossed over from Siberia, the Chinese, or the Vikings.
Ok. But do we need to have a day ever October to remember this? I remember Neil Armstrong without a holiday.
No, I don’t think we should celebrate the man who did all the evil things that Columbus did. Remember yes, celebrate no.
We get few enough holidays in the US, so I’m fine with them keeping the holiday but making it about something else.
I suppose some people might argue that Christopher Columbus is to the Age of Discovery as Martin Luther King Jr. is to the Civil Rights Movement. Both are faces of something much bigger and better than themselves. We celebrate these men for what they represent more than for what they did.
Which I think is a crazy argument. MLK had some flaws, but he didn’t lead any genocidal terrors. And MLK was apparently motivated by the quest for freedom and equality for his countrymen. Columbus was motivated by captalistic greed. He wasn’t even that great of an explorer.
But good luck convincing people a holiday is bullshit. I have Monday off next week, and I plan to thoroughly enjoy it.
Maybe it’s as simple as that. We don’t get the day off around here.
There’s nothing specific to the United States about Columbus or his voyages beyond a number of places in the U.S. named after him, centuries later. He didn’t even get within sight of, let alone set foot on, what would be U.S. territory 300 years later.
As it is, I’m a little hard-pressed to think of a country more whiny about being oppressed in the absence of any real oppression than the United States.
XT:
Not on his first voyage, but he did on subsequent voyages, unless you consider Central America (Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica) to be a separate continent (and I don’t know why you would).