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Edwards says she actually supports the idea of Indigenous Peoples Day; it was the way that Janey unilaterally decreed one that upset her

City Councilor and state-senate candidate Lydia Edwards yesterday apologized for her comments on Wednesday, which many took as a defense in support of Columbus in her current and possible future districts, which have significant Italian-American populations.

For too many people, my comments yesterday were painful and confusing, and I’ve disappointed you. For that, I’m sorry.

She continued:

Let me be very clear:

  1. As a city and as a country, we need an Indigenous People’s Day. It’s a day to acknowledge and address the historic, systemic and ongoing harms towards Indigenous people. More importantly, it’s a day to empower people and celebrate Indigenous leaders and heroes. It is also opportunity for learning, healing and truth.
  2. We need to divorce Columbus from the celebration of Italian heritage. Period.
  3. 3. Unilateral decision making is wrong. The people of Boston deserve meaningful engagement because we represent them.
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Comments

During this entire back and forth I learned that the origin of Columbus Day was really a means to smooth over some racist incidents that targeted Italian Americans and had almost zero to do with Columbus.

If people had kept that in mind and just changed the holiday to Italian American heritage day, this whole nonsense would have been solved quickly.

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As if we don’t have other days available in the calendar year to create an Indigenous Peoples Day.

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...as opposed to "Italian-American Heritage Day", you are kinda associating the issue of indigenous people's rights and treatment with that day, aren't you?

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against what or who?

kinda think it's ok that we don't officially celebrate a person who did navigation wrong but who really got genocide right.

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I think if the switch was made to a generic “Italian American Heritage Day” it wouldn’t be deserving of a Federal holiday and it would be relegated to an observance like St Patrick’s Day and Flag Day.

I think in order to preserve the Federal holiday status the swap out should have been for a difficult-to-assail person or group of people, but that ship has sailed. I mean I wouldn’t be totally surprised if a President in the future makes a change like you suggest, but I don’t think it would curtail the change in certain places to Indigenous Peoples Day.

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Agreed! It's almost as if there should have been a conversation about it. Not action from an acting mayor on her way out since she didn't pass the primary. Sadly, neither candidate should really touch this subject, but it would be nice if the next mayor would have a discussion, at least with the Council.

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The failure of those wanting to preserve Columbus Day/second Monday in October as an Italian-centric holiday is that they did not get ahead of the Indigenous Peoples Day folks.

For reasons outlined in the other thread, it is an outdated notion in 2021 to have a US Federal holiday focused on one nationality—especially to the exclusion of the first peoples who were here thousands of years before Europeans. But the true downfall was doubling down on the idea that the holiday continue to honor genocidal slave-trading sex-trafficking torture-loving psychopath.

The first Indigenous Peoples Day was proclaimed in Berkeley, California in 1992, and after gaining momentum for decades, the sentiment has only accelerated in recent years. Anyone can see that Columbus Day isn’t going to last forever and that is due in large part to Columbus’s history as a one-man human atrocity machine.

If, say twenty years ago, progressive-minded pro-Italian groups picked litterally any non-problematic Italian American or any inclusive, sympathetic group of Italian Americans and worked to re-center the holiday away from Columbus, then it would be far more difficult to pivot the holiday to any other group.

Christopher Columbus is an indefensible punching bag. And it is absurd that one nationality gets a whole federal holiday. People would be far less interested in dismantling the day as a federally-sanctioned celebration of Italian heritage if a sympathetic, positive role model had pre-emptively replaced Columbus. But stubbornly sticking with the Columbus avatar makes it much easier for those of us who believe that it’s time to scrap the whole thing and reinvent it as something else to make our case.

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The way you can tell that these types of process complaints are bullshit is that those making the complaints never actually ask to have the process changed but only the outcome.

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Pretty embarrassing. Not really sure what the goal even was of pandering to the precise little constituency of sad old racists that will never get behind Edwards in one million years anyway.

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Two years on the Boston city council , now she’s running for the State senate’s seat, makes me wonder how quickly she wants a position in Congress. exploitation!! North End and East Boston voters have been exploited..

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The city and federal governments should (finally) just derecognize Columbus Day as an observed holiday. They both recently added Juneteenth as an official holiday. For that reason alone, the Columbus Day holiday needs to be removed to maintain the number of work days on the calendar.

Better to un-recognize Columbus Day than to try to appropriate and rename it. Once it's derecognized, there won't be any fight over what the holiday is supposed to mean. If some people still want to celebrate it, they can do so in peace on their own time. This cultural war over the name of an existing holiday is a useless "less filling tastes great" fight.

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Workers should never give up a holiday without getting a different holiday in return.

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to maintain the number of work days on the calendar

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When you're a government employee, then you become the Man.

Everyone else is working for "the Man".

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feel free to skip a few and go into work instead yourself.

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This city has a real deep fucking problem with what’s going on at Mass and Cass the tent city and eliminating Columbus Day is on top of these politicians minds.

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