“1492.0” A Poem to #AbolishColumbusDay

UPDATE: Columbus Day falls across the country; Indigenous Peoples Day FTW!

Another update: My latest article over at Everyday Feminism: “4 Ways To Celebrate Columbus Day (Without Celebrating Columbus Day)”

TW: Explicit images and words depicting slavery, brutality, and other atrocities.

To hear me perform in ironic pentameter, click here. 

“1492.0”

In fourteen hundred ninety-two

An explorer sailed for Asia true

But lost, got he, this Italian chap

Unsure East from West – who needs a map?

 

So upon an island Columbus’ ships did land

Land filled with many a child, woman, and man

Despite the Taino Arawak people, Columbus did proclaim

“’Tis the Indies! (Or whatever. I declare it for Spain.)”

 

The explorer could do no wrong

His wit was short as his sword was long

He demanded gold from the people there

When he got some – then none – he did despair

 

So he murdered and pillaged and raped with abandon

All of which he journaled and recorded from his cabin 

And to the royals of Spain he did report

“To bodies, not gold, we shall resort.”

 

For Columbus had found – yes, discover he did

A new use for the savages, on whose mortal parts the wealthy bid

Money for slaves – his voyages he could salvage 

And salvage his name (cuz dehumanizing Natives grants modern passage)

 

Instead of “Lost Explorer” he could be credited

With discovering America (history edited)

Nevermind the people already here

Most would be dead in a few hundred years

 

Now this lost explorer, this terrorist bloke

Makes our country look the biggest joke

As the masses cry “Hero!” and celebrate his deeds

Indigenous people continue to bleed

 

Assault, rape, human trafficking, and death

Columbus squeezed ‘til we breathed our last breath

And today – his legacy – our women still struggle for air

We go missing and murdered and… nobody cares

 

And our kids – Oh, our kids! – have lies shoved down their throats

Their history books filled with mythic discovery boats

“Columbus Day” we recognize every October

Fabrications and falsehoods repeated over and over

 

And yet

And YET

The stage has been set

By learneds and activists all covered in sweat 

 

Fighting to educate our lawmakers and kids

“Better school curriculums!” we say, “Whitewashed histories we forbid!”

We march and we protest and we write up proposals 

“Abolish Columbus Day – to the waste disposal!”

 

And while ridding the world of this monstrous wrongdoing

We find ourselves growing and evolving and pursuing

New heights to our knowledge, better ways to progress

Inclusion is possible with these grievances redressed

 

We ask all to consider – no – really, think bigger

So big a boom sounds in your brain’s pulled trigger

Let’s honor our nation’s first people, we say

Join us in celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day