The city council of Yakima is renaming Columbus Day as "Indigenous People's Day". Five brave women expressed their "Yes" vote, as other cities across America, too, voted to change the name of the day chosen back on October 12, 1937 to honor an explorer named Christopher Columbus. Columbus ended up with cities named after him, an entire DAY, numerous parades, and even a bunch of Italian Catholic knights named themselves after him. (Hmm, I wonder if they say "Nii"?)

I want to know why do we still even celebrate this holiday in the first place? (Find out the origin of why here.) So Columbus allegedly "discovered America" and you want to shut the banks and the post office down? It makes me shake my head with judgment and say a hearty, "Bish whet?"

The change of the name and the true meaning behind Columbus Day is a growing movement, and it is interesting to see that the city of Yakima has chosen (in a vote of 5-2) to strike back against the long revered holiday that was fiercely lobbied into becoming a federal holiday by the Catholic faith. (Does this mean we are now on Team Jedi?)

Columbus Day Parade In NYC Celebrates Italian Heritage
Getty Images
loading...

As expected, there is some local backlash of jeers mixed in with the cheers. Being the "Petty LaBelle" that I am, I just had to run over to Facebook to see what the instant reactions would be to such a historic vote. The salty tears and comments of those who disagreed did not disappoint (I've already warned you, I am PETTY). The disheartened emotions of locals ran the full spectrum of displeasure, as can be seen from a bunch of "Angry Emojis", all the way to commenters spinning the "Columbus Day" discussion around to why Donald Trump needs to become the President already. Many felt as did one angry woman (we'll call her "Dee" for short) who said she was "sick" of having to update history books" (try being sick of being forced to READ outdated history books) and that "it's been Columbus Day for years! Leave it alone!" (Yeah, because THAT'S how justice works. Snarkasm.)

There were also many expressions of support, much to my relief, such as the words of commenter Kristina, who wrote: "Good! It's about time we stop celebrating such a murderous thief". Word.

When I was a young child in school, we were taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America and that he was commissioned by the queen of Spain to take the great ship, the Santa Maria, out to see if he and his crew could find a new passage to the country of India. Columbus was an imbecile. Yes, I said it! He thought he had "discovered" a land that was already home to hundreds of thousands of native people. Yes, the INDIGENOUS! The PEOPLES. They were ALREADY HERE, DUDE.

It wasn't until after I had graduated high school that I learned the error of our U.S. History teachers' ways, and now that I am armed with knowledge, I will not be teaching my daughter that Columbus did anything other than bring about the demise of a beautiful and regal people whose purpose in life was to be happy and respect Mother Nature and the creatures, flora, and fauna in it.

I decided to drive over to the city of Toppenish and ask some members of the Yakama Nation what they thought about the decision, and if it meant anything to them.

I hit the freeway, dodged some construction traffic and landed at the Cultural Heritage Center. I was immediately greeted in the lobby by a bubbly woman in her early twenties, who was sporting some awesome ruby red lipstick. She said her name was Miranda, and I asked her if she was the woman in charge at the Heritage Center. She said that she was merely the cashier of the gift shop (so I told her I would give her a fancier job title in this article). Miranda will hereby be described as the "CEO of Cashiers".

So there I am, hanging out with Miranda, aka the CEO of Cashiers, and her friend Uriel, and we spent about ten minutes or so, waxing poetic about how dumb it is to expect native Americans to celebrate Columbus Day. Uriel explained to me that it's like the equivalent of choosing a day out of the year where everyone expects you to celebrate the man who killed your most of your family.

Somehow, our conversation went from discussing Columbus Day to discussing the memory of those slain in 9/11, and even included an in-depth discussion of the lies we are taught in elementary and high school by well-meaning teachers. We even had a debate about rapper/actor Ice Cube's greatest acting work (Uriel insisted that it can be found in the movie "Higher Learning", which relates to this conversation and I plan to watch that movie sometime this weekend for some clarity).

If you get a chance, please take the tour of the Yakama Museum. I learned so much that I did not know about the Yakama people, and my heart broke several times as I combed over the exhibits of artifacts of the indigenous peoples who used to roam about freely in this area of Washington State (and beyond). The indigenous people of this region who were robbed of their homeland, culture (and in many cases their own children were stolen and sent to "boarding school"). We can thank these tragedies and more all on a 15th century version of Katt Williams' "poor little Tink-Tink", better known as the over-glorified explorer named Christopher Columbus.

Miranda wrapped things up by keeping it real with me.

"I don't really care about Columbus Day," she said, definitively. "I don't even think about it."

"Then why are people even celebrating it?" Uriel chimed in. "The man did not discover America. We were already here."

My sentiments, exactly! Knowledge is power!

More From 107.3 KFFM