Okay, with all the crap going on now with McGowan over at the county offices, this issue certainly isn’t scandalous, but funny.
The Minnehaha County website is calling Columbus Day a (regional holiday). The mistake is two-fold. I’m not even sure what a ‘regional’ holiday is, and according to Mike Rounds in his weekly column, we haven’t celebrated Columbus Day for a very long time in South Dakota;
For 29 years, South Dakotans have celebrated Native Americans’ Day instead of Columbus Day. The late Governor George Mickelson, along with the editor of the Native Sun News, Tim Giago, and tribal leaders, worked together to proclaim 1990 the Year of Reconciliation. The decision to change Columbus Day to Native Americans’ Day was made during the Year of Reconciliation by the state legislature as a way to honor the deep history of the tribal people who have long called this land their home.
Now I know why the county commission stopped asking for the monthly reports from the Treasurer’s office, their calendars were messed up.
Columbus Day has been recognized as Native American Day in this StSte for some time. With 5 reservations in the state it seems appropriate. Recent historical evidence reveals that there were other people here from Europe before Columbus. After all, he didn’t make it to North America but landed in the Caribbean. Perhaps Native Americans deserve a day more than Columbus.
Realistically, isn’t this just another day when federal workers get paid for not working.
South Dakota was – I believe – the second to last state in the union to recognize MLK Day, but in so doing, they were one of the first states to change Columbus Day to Native Americans’ Day.
So originally, NAs’ Day was “regional” in reality, while Columbus Day was always national until states began to walk from it. So when states like South Dakota began to walk from Columbus Day, they began to make Columbus Day itself, “regional;” but since this regionalism was outside of South Dakota, it makes one wonder why a South Dakota County would need to recognize a holiday outside of their region. It’s like proclaiming the birthday of a co-worker on your personal home calendar, while you ignore on that same calendar the birthday of a domicile love-one, who shares the same birthdate with that particular co-worker.
( – and Woodstock states: “It is just further proof that Trump and Putin plan to divide us all up into ‘regions.'”)
I give the county credit for using technology. In your screen shot you will notice that the calendar app the county is using is Google Calendar. Google (good or bad) is the one who added the “Columbus Day (regional Holiday)” to the county calendar.
Now if you want want to send a letter to Google commenting on why their calendar isn’t smart enough to be location aware and insert “Native American Day” into the calendar. I am all for that. Like your posting stated google has had 29 years to get it right.
BTW, there are *nine* tribal reservations in SD, not five. This state map shows the locations: https://www.stjo.org/native-american-culture/oceti-sakowin-seven-council-fires/south-dakota-reservations/
I stand corrected. There are not 5 but 9 reservations in SD. The Native American representation downtown was impressive. There was a time when other than Native Americans resented federal attention. It seemed they had new homes and we couldn’t pay rent. This is no longer true. That was a phase that was politically motivated. What’s true now is reservations get ACLU attention. Due to the charter, we in Sioux Falls are also sovereign. They’ll get around to restoring our civil liberty eventually. An ideal circumstance would be a unified state. It doesn’t exist now. Our governor can’t travel through reservations. She’s hardly welcome in Sioux Falls because she’s not progressive and favors agriculture more than banking. The state has become divisive more than other states.
Columbus aka Native American Day is another day when civil servants who do nothing can do double nothing with a long weekend.