Cincinnati City Council Shows Hypocrisy In Request To Honor Indigenous Peoples
On Wednesday, October 4th, a group of about twenty local activists gathered at Cincinnati’s City Hall to speak before the city council about the need to change the second Monday in October from “Columbus Day” to “Indigenous Peoples Day.” A year before in October of 2016, a resolution had been brought before council, and they’d voted on it. The results were stunning with four YES votes and five ABSTENTIONS. At the time, one of the abstainers, Republican Charlie Winburn, said he didn’t know enough about the issue to make a decision.
David Mann, the Vice-Mayor, recently claimed that he'd heard from Italian-Americans, who were offended by the possible change. As someone of Italian descent, I'm personally appalled that out of all the incredible humans Italy has offered the world (think Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Machiavelli), the "best" one is a man, who committed genocide, rape, and enslavement across the Americas. Christopher Columbus was not a good person by any metric.
Fast forward to earlier this week when various members of native tribes as well as other concerned residents of Cincinnati gathered to ask that the city council pass an emergency resolution proclaiming that Columbus Day be known as Indigenous Peoples Day. Giving nearly an hour of historically explicit testimony in regard to the horrors Columbus brought to the Americas as well as personal appeals for the council to be on the right side of justice, the activists spoke passionately and with purpose.
Making arguments about how other cities and states were changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day, and giving personal testimony about the impact of being a Native American while growing up being taught the historical lies in regard to Columbus and the “discovery” of the Americas, each speaker was armed with facts to bolster their case. However, it wasn’t enough to change the city council’s mind. With one of the YES votes from 2016 out on medical leave (Democrat Wendell Young), there were only three remaining YES votes present (Democrats Yvette Simpson, Chris Seelbach, and P.G. Sittenfeld). None of the abstentions from 2016 (Democrat and Vice-Mayor David Mann, Republican Charlie Winburn, Republican Amy Murray, Independent Christopher Smitherman, and Charterite Kevin Flynn) spoke up to change their vote, and the councilmembers pushing for the resolution were left to apologize to the crowd for not having the necessary votes.
As the activists stood to leave, Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati member and local activist, Brian Taylor, pointed at each city councilmember and to the mayor, John Cranley, calling them all hypocrites. Jheri Neri, a Native American activist, said he was working to get a new resolution drafted and hoped that it would have the council votes to pass in the near future. In an interview today, Mexican Indigenous Activist Regio Rodriguez said, "It is imperative to fight the symbolism of colonization. It's not even Columbus himself, who needs to be defeated (as evil as he was), but the same euro-centric, entitled system this man operated under that continues to ravage the world. We hope this change can bring positive influence in the fight against tyranny."
I will add a personal note, as I also spoke before the city council on Wednesday. My main points were that when we know better, we’re morally obligated to do better, and that there were no descendants of Columbus in the room but there were plenty of Shawnee, Chippewa, Miami, Ottawa, and Delaware in the room, in the city, and in the region. When we left, I was profoundly ashamed of the 2016 abstention voters. They had an opportunity to do better in 2017, and they chose not to take it.
*Photo from CNN, Photo Credit: Andy Cross, Denver Post