Indigenous Peoples Day

Today, a friend who is Native American posted this on Facebook. It's not a share: this was her own experience, today:

At eye clinic.
Clinician: happy Columbus Day.
Me: No, it is Indigenous People’s Day.
Clinician: No, it is Columbus Day.
Me: I am Indigenous and it is Indigenous People’s Day.
Had she persisted I would have told her about the violence Columbus inflicted on native people.

There's so much wrong with that interaction on so many levels — starting with a lack of basic customer service, extending through incuriosity and ignorance (like... has this person ever read a newspaper?), and finally of course into the bigger picture of this person not having to know that there's even a question about whether Columbus Day should exist, and why.

By the way, this exchange took place in the Twin Cities — where both major cities have abolished Columbus Day and transformed it into Indigenous Peoples Day. In Minnesota, where indigenous people are much more visible than they are in many states, both in the urban and rural areas, and where they are increasingly politically powerful. Yet we have folks like this who are ostensibly educated professionals, interacting with the public. What a long way there is to go for we who are non-indigenous people.

If you want to learn a bit about the current state of Indian Country and how it's portrayed (and not portrayed at all) in media, check out this hour from today's MPR News with Angela Davis, in which she talked with the project leader of Reclaiming Native Truth and with two members of NAJA, the Native American Journalists Association.

And remember: