Columbus Day: A Celebration of Indigenous Genocide
The fact that Columbus Day is a national federal holiday in the United States is unbelievable.
It reminds us of a very ugly truth: The United States was founded on genocide.
This man, Christopher Columbus, never set foot on what is now part of the continental United States. He did, however, massacre thousands, initiating what was to become a holocaust of Indigenous Peoples.
Dennis Banks, co-founder of AIM, the American Indian Movement, speaks to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now and recounts how he was forcibly removed from his home as a 4 year-old to be raised in government boarding schools where he was beaten for speaking his Native language.
The United States federal government was still implementing this policy founded on conquest and genocide, “Kill the Indian, save the man,” late into the 1970’s.
In 2012, Leonard Peltier is in prison serving a life sentence for allegedly killing an FBI agent on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975. A prisoner of war.
Kill as many possible, destroy the language and culture of those who survive, criminalize the resisters.
That’s the plan.
Reconsider Columbus Day?
No, it’s time to abolish it!
(Source: democracynow.org, via thinkmexican)
