It’s Columbus Day on paper, sure — the same paper that once said the world was flat and men in funny hats “discovered” continents already full of nations, languages, and people who didn’t need discovering.
But out here, in the real world, you can feel the truth humming under the asphalt.
The wind off the harbor doesn’t whisper Columbus. It whispers the names of people who were here long before any European decided he’d found something.
Every year they trot out the same story: brave explorer, bold voyage, blah blah blah.
But the older I get, the more it sounds like a bad cover band playing a song nobody asked for.
Today isn’t about Columbus.
Today’s about the people who survived him.
It’s about the ones who kept their drums beating even when the government tried to silence them.
It’s about the languages that refused to die.
It’s about the kids growing up now who know damn well their history didn’t start with a ship hitting the wrong shoreline.
And here’s the thing worth saying out loud, even if the calendars and politicians won’t:
Only two states bother to tell the truth today — South Dakota and Wisconsin — calling this day what it should’ve been all along: Native American Day.
Everyone else is still clinging to Columbus like a bad habit they can’t quit.
Call it what you want — the calendar, the politicians, the folks who still cling to the old myth like it’s a security blanket.
But I’m calling it Indigenous Peoples Day, because the truth deserves louder company than the lie.
And if that makes me a rebel?
Good.
Some holidays need rebelling against.
