Do you think Columbus Day should be celebrated?

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I have been hearing protests about Columbus and South Park made an episode about it and I even googled him to see why this was so controversial. I saw he was not a good person so people do make a point about not wanting this to be a holiday. Though this has been made into a federal holiday in 1937, not all places celebrate it like my work building is still open that day and it's a federal building. My son's school won't be celebrating it either because they will still be open that day.

Also why are we hearing about this now? Have people always protested the statue and the holiday? Why now than before?

Does anyone here actually celebrate it or no?

Columbus Day is widely celebrated in the Italian-American community, similar to the Irish and St. Patrick's Day.

I don't celebrate Columbus Day because I live in Canada. Instead we celebrate Thanksgiving the second Monday in October.

I've known since I was a kid Columbus wasn't really the first European to sail to North America, it was probably some Vikings who came hundreds of years earlier to what is now Newfoundland. There might have been others even earlier than that. I guess North America didn't exist until some white guys discovered it.

I once read on Facebook that Columbus was a horrible greedy murderer that enslaved and killed natives, and that the Americans practically ranking him up there with Abe Lincoln and Martin Luther King is ridiculous. There are better explorers in history to have a holiday after them. But I guess any excuse for a holiday is a good one. I read that Christ wasn't even really born on December 25th according to the Bible, and Christmas is probably on that day due to connections to the Solstice and other winter-type events.

I don't care if anyone celebrates Columbus Day. We don't do it in our country anyway.

Besides, Leifur Eriksson discovered America hundreds of years prior to Columbus.

When I was in Grade 7 my social studies textbook contained a conversation by two Canadian kids discussing Columbus Day in the US. When one kid asked why the Americans don't just drop the name Columbus and name it after the first Viking to sail to North America instead, the other said it might be just because Columbus is easier to say and spell. Before then I did not think Americans would be that dumb.

Maybe call it Viking Day, or European White Guy Explorer day, I don't know.

I was never off from school or work for it so it's kind of pointless to me.