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is it that, significantly, different than the national holiday we celebrate that was initiated by (some) slave owners?
The main difference is on July 4, we don't celebrate [insert name of the most prominent slave trader of his day who was one of the founding fathers] Day. And if we had originally celebrated that person, I'd fully support ending that holiday and renaming it for someone who wasn't a brutal, genocidal slave trader (we would have lots of options), or calling it "Independence Day" which is in fact what we celebrate.
So if instead of Columbus day, we want to call it, "America's Day" or something, whatever....
I guess the only virtue I see with "Columbus" day is to use it as a way to inform students what Columbus did and what settling this new world actually meant for the indigenous population. We don't have to be continually ashamed of it, nothing we can do to change that history, but it should be our duty as informed people to understand what did happen. But even then, that kind of education does not require a national HOLIDAY to achieve. Just textbooks that are accurate. Frankly I'm embarrassed to admit I was well into adulthood before I had the slightest idea what the actual record of Columbus the man was - until then, I thought he was some benign explorer type - the cartoon version.