Happy Columbus Day … well, I mean, happy “I discovered an already inhabited land and started a cultural genocide” day.

To find riches, Columbus and his men drove Native Americans off the land that they were willing to share. Columbus wanted their resources, and in return did whatever he could to get it. Native Americans were forced into slavery, and thousands died from smallpox and other diseases that their bodies didn’t have immunity against because of no prior exposure.

I don’t know why we even celebrate this day. Was it because he was the first? Sorry to break it to you, but he wasn’t. The natives were already, you guessed it, native to this land. He wasn’t even the first European to step on the land in which we now call North America.

Leif Erikson stepped on this land 500 years before Columbus’ birth. So why isn’t it called Leif Erikson day?

Another fact you might not have known is that the people of Africa also had a presence in America before Columbus.

According to an internet article written by Garikai Chengu, “The strongest evidence of African presence in America before Columbus comes from the pen of Columbus himself. In 1920, a renowned American historian and linguist, Leo Weiner of Harvard University, in his book, Africa and the discovery of America, explained how Columbus noted in his journal that Native Americans had confirmed that “black skinned people had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears.”

So why do we celebrate this? Why do business offices and banks close for the day? Why do we honor a thief, and murderer? We shouldn’t. He was literally just a man on a boat surrounded by other men who saw a land inhabited by other people and came ashore.

In other words, he took a vacation, and on that vacation he caused genocide, slavery, rape and plunder. I could mention the positives, but that wouldn’t cancel or equal the amount of negativity he’s caused. The negativity that most American students won’t hear about until senior year in high school or freshman year in college. I laugh at the idea of celebrating him. Celebrate him? I’m sorry, I don’t celebrate criminals, and it is an insult to the Native Americans of our time to do so.