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In fourteen hundred and nine-two,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
In fourteen hundred and ninety-three,
Columbus started slavery.

That little ditty is true, though not the one you learned in high school.

On Monday, October 8 the United States celebrates Columbus Day. The actual anniversary of Columbus landing in the Americas takes place on October 12. This Saturday in Denver the country's oldest Columbus Day parade takes place in the face of growing resistance by Colorado AIM (American Indian Movement) and the Transform Columbus Day Alliance.

Why get down on Columbus like that? Columbus, the person, was directly involved in establishing slavery and genocide in the Americas. He became wealthy in the process. He was no innocent, and his early decisions shaped the exploitation of the new world.

There is harm in honoring mythologies that, essentially, excuse and elevate European American experience and heritage-mythologies that create a false innocence that historically was never present. There is harm in failing to tell the story of the people Columbus met and enslaved. There is harm celebrating a person who achievements included relentless exploitation, brutal and murderous repression, and unyielding greed for material riches.

We can think of alternatives. Celebrating the meeting of cultures in the Americas that began in 1492, is one. And celebrating the lives, experiences and contributions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas is another.

Columbus Day celebrations began about a century ago in the midst of a rising white supremacy and newly installed Jim Crow laws. It was a very racist time in our nation's history, and the celebration of a holiday marking conquest, material gain, and land appropriation from indigenous peoples was what the country called for, and created.

In our present time, we could use a different focus. Learn more about Columbus Day by visiting WACAN.org's Columbus Day page.

Check out what WACAN member Eric Stoller had to say about Columbus Day in his 2006 blog.

Poverty is still structured by race according to an August census report. A study shows whites earning twice as much as Latinos. Another study finds people of color face discrimination in credit markets. Still another study finds that white people pay less (people of color pay more) for loans they do get. Finally, in North Carolina and other parts, white communities leave communities of color out in the cold without municipal services.

Iowa looks at racism in its legal system. Illinois finds racial profiling occurring. Madison, Wisconsin, authorities and townspeople adjust to a new and growing cultural presence. In Minnesota, police mistakenly arrest a black man for a crime already known to have been committed by a white person.

A new study shows white people believing it's not hard to be black. Another study documents racial bias in health care providers.

For a overview of New Orleans two years after Katrina, read "Healing Katrina's Racial Wounds," in TIME. For an inside look at what it's like to work for racial justice in New Orleans, read "Hearts on Fire" by Ingrid Chapman. Finally for a deeply disturbing report that never made it to mainstream media, read "White Vigilante Justice" by Malik Rahim.

A racism expert discusses xenophobia in Germany. South African whites need to get their act together unless they end up like Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe, white-owned firms must convert to black majority control.

"Majoring in Minstrelsy: White Students, Blackface and the Failure of Mainstream Multiculturalism," by Tim Wise. June 2007.

"Reparations: What White People Need to Know," by Luke Visconti. August 2007.

Life in the gentrification zone. "South of Madison: Seattle's Central District," by Gretchen D.

"Green Issue is Black and White," CNN interview of Robert Bullard.

"I Am Not A Pro-White Supremacist," by SRHS_BandChic.

"An Awkward Discovery," by Nicole Dixon.

Black women consider dating white men. CNN