One of the things that happens when you spend ten days running an online voting bracket about holidays is that you think a lot about holidays, and one of the first things you think about them is, “Shit, what should we call Columbus Day in this thing?”
No holiday has a wider spread between its enjoyability and its purpose than a day set aside making a lovely October three-day weekend which has its origins in supporting immigrants dealing with prejudice but has its deeper origins in a guy opening up the world economy for all sorts of human progress and also doing absolutely horrific things to a massive group of people, both wittingly (the rape, the killing) and unwittingly (the disease, the effective genocide that was [this is bad] probably bound to happen but did need a spark, which he provided). Columbus Day is the most human holiday—there’s bravery and adventure and progress; there’s cruelty and stupidity and hate—and as the most human holiday, it’s also the most controversial, something currently manifesting itself in a phenomenon in which if you call it Columbus Day a whole bunch of people (sometimes justifiably) lose their shit and if you call it Indigenous Peoples’ Day a whole bunch of people (not really justifiably) lose their shit. (I can empathize with the exhaustion, but guys…) The best solution? Some would argue it’s to get rid of it. Others would argue it’s to change its name. Still more would argue it’s to let people call it whatever they want. Not us, though. That’s not our argument. We want it to be a day of hate.
Specifically, we think The Second Monday in October should be a national day of loathing. Like a day of mourning, or a day of reflection, but hate-driven. Anger-driven. A day to let it all out.
Hate is part of the human experience. Rage is part of the human experience. Loathing is part of the human experience. Simultaneous boundless pride and terrifying psychological insecurity is part of the human experience. That’s how we got Columbus in the first place, and therefore how we got America, but it’s not really an American thing. Everyone knows how to hate. Everyone hates. At least a little bit. Now and then. As a treat.
It’s hard to let this out at the proper flow rate. See: Our current political “discourse.” It’s easy to stifle it and it’s easy to just take the guardrails off and go firehose with it, but it’s hard to let out some fury, say, “Wow, that felt good, I feel better,” and move on. (Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional this is all speculation I don’t know what to do with my anger so I usually unleash it internally on performative culture war fuckery and externally on whoever’s currently feuding with Joe Kelly.)
Which is why we need a day to do just that.
On The Second Monday in October, the most human of holidays, we need to let it out. See someone post something abhorrent on Facebook? Let it rip in the comments. Don’t like your neighbor’s choice of lawnmowing time? Water your plants for an hour so the water runs down into their yard and gets it too muddy to be mown. Get cut off in traffic? Show that motherfucker your middle finger, then honk until your car can’t honk any more (this actually happens—car horns eventually run out of air, or at least they did in the Crystal Lake Central High School student parking lot in 2012 when our buddy Glaze punched our buddy Wasif’s steering wheel through the window and the horn got stuck in the “blare” position).
It’s important, of course, that there are guardrails. Crimes are still crimes on The Second Monday in October. It’s also important that this works, so everyone be cool once The Second Monday in October is over. The idea behind the national day of loathing is that every other day is a national day of not-loathing, just like the idea behind celebrating someone’s birthday is that for the rest of the year, we don’t have to celebrate that they exist. The Second Monday in October? Flush it. Flush the ferocity. The Second Tuesday in October? Buy that neighbor a coffee. Together, we can defeat hate. But first, we need to steer into it. (Also we should make a different day Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Like the Third Monday in October. Back-to-back three-day weekends? Sign me up.)
