What If Everyone Got Their Own Indigenous Peoples’ Month?

Soon it will be November, a time for gratitude. Thanks to leftism, it will also be a time to commemorate the racist decimation of native peoples at the hands of white imperialist colonizers. Nothing brings people together like identity politics.

For the record, I am not opposed to holidays. In fact, the more the merrier; I will gladly add them to my list of paid public holidays. Thanks for that summer day off, Juneteenth! 

As it pertains to the latest round of cultural celebrations, though, something sits uneasily with me when it comes to the way Indigenous People’s celebrations have been rolled out. First, the second Monday in October was already taken when they reclaimed it for Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Leftism never creates, it only destroys, and this is just one more example. Had they kept Columbus Day where it was and simply added another day to the calendar, then so be it. But they didn’t. 

And now, because November is the month of a sacred national holiday dating back to 1863 and whose traditions stretch back centuries further, these same people want to declare Thanksgiving racist because it whitewashes the brutality of European colonization. (Are not all immigrants good? Just so I understand, European immigrants were bad because they destroyed the existing culture, but today’s immigrants are good because they are...destroying the existing culture? Am I missing something?). 

Given the limited number of my iPhone calendar’s monthly recognitions of Indigenous Peoples’ Month, Black History Month, and Hispanic Heritage Month, it seems exclusive to celebrate these few cultures and not recognize the full breadth of an American system that enables people of all backgrounds and cultures to coexist. And no, the argument that every day is White Person Day is absurd. Today, I sat in traffic while going to work, was told I was privileged, frail, and racist in the latest round of corporate training, sat in traffic again, made dinner, cleaned the house, and got into bed. That is not a holiday. 

Regardless, in the spirit of Indigenous Peoples’ Month I am ready to embrace my self-anointed tribal name of Writes With Fury and get after everyone else’s proposed holidays. After all, we were all indigienous somewhere at some time or another. Or none of us were. Doesn’t matter. Cheers!

January can kick off the year as the month for those of Asian descent. I am not sold on a name - Asian History Month, Asian Heritage Month, Asian Peoples’ Day, or It’s Racist To Say They All Look The Same Except This Month. That can be decided later, I suppose. January made the most sense given that the Chinese New Year is usually held at the end of the month. Usually January is a time of cleansing, dieting, and abstinence from the hard living of one family gathering after another, but there is always room for more Chinese food. You’re always hungry!

February has to remain Black History Month. It’s always a good reminder that George Washington owned slaves anyways. Apparently Lincoln didn’t emancipate them, either, he just found new ways to enslave blacks. God bless American history.

March will belong to the Irish. They probably deserve the award for best cultural day of the year, so naturally we will extend Saint Patrick’s Day out to encompass an entire month. We will all have red hair and speak with slurs by the end of it.

April was a glorious day for Allied troops in 1945. On the 20th, Hitler did the good work of killing himself; on the 30th, the Germans surrendered. Normally I wouldn’t choose such a downer to commemorate a strong and storied people, but there is precedence with the way Indigenous Peoples’ Day was rolled out. They chose autumn to provide a counterargument to the greatness of Europeans. In so doing, they propped up their own demise. With that in mind, we will let German-Americans reclaim their heritage in the month they faced complete defeat. As a bonus for everyone that recognizes this new month, the Germans are also a fabled beer drinking culture. Nothing says cultural appropriation like consecutive months of pints and boots.

My editor said the word count was hitting our print limit. May and June are open for discussion. 

America gets the month of July. All joking aside, without America the rest of these contrived celebrations and ethnic months would never exist. They wouldn’t even be an afterthought. Human history would have plowed forward as miserable as ever. A secondary celebration can be the free market system made so powerful by the United States. The English were perhaps the closest to offering freedom to its citizenry, and they eventually would have outlawed slavery, but there is a big difference between a constitutional monarchy and a constitutional republic. Only one of them comes with Meghan Markle. Come to think of it, there are rumors that the Declaration of Independence wasn’t fully signed and ratified until August. America gets August, too.

September and October have merged into two months of heritage celebration for Hispanics. It confusingly ranges from the middle of September to the middle of October, but that itself has some significance due to the independence several Latino (nope, not doing Latinx) nations gained from Spain in 1821. In the sense that Hispanics are a mixed blend of Indigenous and European blood, their holiday will rightfully be a mix of September and October. 

That brings us back to the month of November. To be clear, despite the fact that no two native communities were the same, I am not opposed to celebrating the vast number of unique cultures and warring tribes in a reductionist effort to make white people feel bad. Holidays are holidays. November can remain Indigenous Peoples’ Month. 

Who gets December? The English, French, Italians, or Polish? Each has a considerable population or legacy in this country. There would never have been mobs or mafias, so that means something. Hanukkah is celebrated in December, and there hasn’t been mention of the Jewish population yet. Asians got a month, but that excludes Indians from India. Can you imagine if we gave them November as well? I don’t see that going over smoothly. The entire Middle East got lumped into Asia based on geography, but that excludes Arabs and Muslims for the most part. Someone can talk me into May or June for them.

When you think about it, there are too many cultures and backgrounds to celebrate in a single calendar year. What other country has this problem? 

I am thankful for being alive in America in the 21st century. At minimum, everyone here could say is the same thing.