Let’s just cancel Independence Day

Columbus
Christopher Columbus | Image: bmoreprep by Pixabay

For the past couple of years, as we sailed into October, I noticed the city put out a notice that City Hall would be closed on the second Monday, for “a holiday.”

It did not mention the name of the holiday.

(Sssssh.) Columbus Day.

Mayor Kenney now has abandoned flying under the radar in favor of full frontal executive order renaming the holiday Indigenous Peoples Day. But it is not just renaming it — he’s cancelling Columbus. Making it disappear. How’s that for exercising his privilege?

“What do I care?” he did not say.

“I don’t live in South Philly any more.  If it pisses off the Italians, who cares? They’re European.”

One reason given for the change was Columbus’ record of killing and enslaving indigenous people. It’s a fact.

You know who else killed and enslaved indigenous people?

Other indigenous people. It’s a fact.

But inconvenient facts don’t matter when your arm is aching from all the waving of the virtue flag.

Nothing against indigenous people. In America, every national, racial, ethnic, religious, gender, etc., group should have its own holiday (if there are enough days in the year).

Going maximum progressive, Kenney also has elevated  “Juneteenth” to celebrated status. “Juneteenth” marks the day (June 19, 1865) that Union troops (and news of emancipation) supposedly reached the last people in the deepest parts of the former Confederacy in Galveston, Texas. Slavery didn’t “end” on that day, it was more like it was the last stop on the pony express.  

Wouldn’t it make more sense to celebrate the date of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation? That would be Jan. 1 (1863), but that would interfere with celebrating college bowl games, and the Mummers Parade, if Kenney isn’t able to kill it. And he’d love to.

The Jan. 1 date also would bring too much attention to Abraham Lincoln who is rapidly losing luster among the Lefty Loonies. San Francisco has just stripped his name off schools. You’d have to ask those Froot Loops why.

So what had been the Christopher Columbus legal holiday will be swapped for Indigenous Peoples Day, which celebrates, to repeat, a culture of rape, torture, murder and enslavement by what we used to call Indians. Is it possible our genius mayor didn’t know that? Or was he just so submerged with some cockamamie constituency he didn’t bother to fact check?

Our too-woke mayor also is making “Juneteenth” a legal city holiday, another day our city workers have off (because they are so incredibly efficient right now). Alas, his executive order lasts only as long as he is in office.

Deputy Mayor Cynthia Figueroa, who co-chairs the Reform, Transformation and Reconciliation Committee created in the aftermath of last summer’s protests, said the administration hopes to make the holiday permanent as part of bargaining with city worker unions this year.

City holidays, according to the City Council web site, are: New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day. 

I’m sure city unions won’t object to another paid holiday, but taxpayers might. 

Adding another paid holiday is irresponsible.

To fulfill Kenney’s wet dream, we should eliminate one.

I suggest Independence Day, July 4th.

You can guess why, can’t you?

It was “independence” for white males, but not for women, and African-Americans in a wide swath of the 13 colonies. 

If we can’t celebrate Christopher Columbus (and George Washington, Ulysses Grant, Frank Rizzo, Kate Smith and countless others) how can we keep July 4th?

Unless and until the rest of us, rational Americans, get in the face of the Loony Left, they will continue to cancel our heroes, erode our traditions, rewrite our history and destroy the faith that we have always had in ourselves, our culture, and our country.

It’s time to stop the insanity. 

  • Stu Bykofsky served the Philadelphia Daily News as an editor, reporter and columnist for nearly 50 years before retiring in 2019. He now publishes at the centrist stubykofsky.com. 

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