Indigenous People’s Day seems to have turned a corner. What once was a regionally specific holiday has now become its own thing. Thanks to this root canal of a year we’re having, people have developed a now-or-never mentality. It seems that when enough terrible things happen in a short span of time, people reach a sort-of societal Terminal Velocity where fear – fear of discomfort or change or pushback – is marginalized: I call this the “IDGAF stage”. Consequently, those things that used to cause a person to quietly and hopelessly dissent now evoke outcry and action. Along with social justice reform outcries, there was a clamor for historical corrections as statues toppled because they were considered symbols of oppression and misinformation. That’s where Indigenous People’s Day comes in.
Originally adopted to celebrate Native American peoples, I.P.D. is evolving to embody the struggle of all those indigenous people killed, displaced and/or oppressed worldwide – usually without even a footnote in the history books. Ironically, the holiday has taken hold because of a historical oppressor: Christopher Columbus. Hidden among History’s many misrepresentations was Christopher Columbus. A man now considered more of a buccaneer than a benevolent discoverer. Chris enslaved, dominated and killed up-and-down the New World. Amid this groin pull of a year, the new historical perspective of Columbus show him to be torturous, commodifying and violent, which have revised his legacy from hero to a more pedestrian role for the time: brutal European colonizer. All of this, ironically, worked to the benefit of Indigenous People’s Day, which now found itself nestled in a prime National Holiday timeslot!
Once again, Timing proves itself vital in life. All it took was a perfectly terrible cocktail of disaster, disease and discontent to lead this country and the world into a serious – although I’m sure fleeting – interest in Justice both in the present and in the past. Perhaps, this raging hemorrhoid of a year had purpose after all or maybe everything will revert as soon as we can be sufficiently distracted once again.
Strip Clubs are Sad Discos 