Robert
Higgs at cleveland.com reports:
A typically united City
Council divided Monday night over a non-binding resolution calling for the city
to recognize the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day rather
than Columbus Day.
Councilman Basheer Jones
proposed the resolution, saying he wished to recognize that a culture already
existed in North America when Italian explorer Christopher Columbus arrived in
Oct. 12, 1492.
Council approves most
proposed resolutions with little or no comment, but Jones’ proposal struck a
nerve with colleagues Matt Zone, a second-generation Italian American, and Mike
Polensek, who also is of Italian descent.
Zone spoke for several
minutes in opposition to the resolution. He said that he grew up celebrating
Columbus Day as a proud symbol of immigration to the United States. And it was
a day important to Italian Americans who themselves had to endure bigotry in
this country.
“It now is a universal
theme with all people who come into this country,” Zone said. “One of the
highest honors I ever had was in 2015 when I was the grand marshal in the
Columbus Day parade.”
Zone said he had no
problem doing something to honor indigenous people, but not at the expense of
Columbus Day.
.
. .
(Full report is here.) But
it’s not about identity politics, in this case Native Americans vs Italians. It’s
about using identity politics to push another attempt to erase the history of
America. Yes, of course, Native Americans were here before Columbus, but it was
the Old World coming to the New World that marked the inception of the early
European settlements that led to the founding of the United States.
If
you live in Cleveland, find your councilman here. The general phone number for
council members is 216.664.2840. Give ‘em a call.
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