A Voice from the Eastern Door
Several hundred people supported an effort urging SUNY Potsdam to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day.
On Tuesday, October 18, 2016, Potsdam professors Laura and Axel Fair-Schulz hosted a demonstration outside the school's Barrington Student Union supporting Dakota Access Pipeline activists. They collected pages of signatures on a petition they will present to SUNY Potsdam President Kristen Esterberg.
"We've wanted to get rid of Columbus Day for a while," Laura Fair-Schulz said. "Why not have it in league with showing support for Standing Rock?"
Sarah Andrews, a SUNY Potsdam sophomore from Catskill, said she added her name to the Indigenous Peoples Day petition because she no longer buys into the whitewashed historical Columbus story often taught to children in school.
"Yeah, he found a new land, but they don't go into depth – the rapes, how many people he killed," she said. "He forced them to become Christians. That's something that should be brought up."
There is a nationwide movement to stop honoring Columbus each October and instead recognize Native Americans. Vincent Schilling, a journalist and member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe published a story in Indian Country Today Media Network in 2013 debunking many Columbus myths. His research showed what many Native American communities have known for centuries, but many history books ignore - that Columbus and his men were responsible for atrocities such as Indian Native bodies as dog food. The full story is at http://bit.ly/1jEpAph.
Earlier this year, the Plattsburgh Central School District Board of Education voted 5-2 to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day.
"If Plattsburgh can do it, so can Potsdam," Axel Fair-Schulz said, adding that they received some of their support from the faculty level, not just students. "I'm surprised how much support there is."
He said they had a chance to talk to the school president, who was "essentially supportive of it."
"She responded very favorably. She said it was a good idea," Axel Fair-Schulz said.
He said he hopes their demonstration will get people thinking about inequality and oppression that still exists in society today.
"We want people to think about deeper structures - why is there so much injustice ... (and) see the system that puts profits before people," he said.
The DAPL protestors are largely driven to fight the pipeline which not only risks poisoning drinking water for millions of people, but will involve digging through and tearing up sacred Native American sites in North Dakota. News reports from the scene have shown private, militarized security forces using attack dogs and pepper-spray against non-violent demonstrators.
"These people at Standing Rock are risking their lives for the environment, which is under assault," Laura Fair-Schulz said. "It's inspiring to see all these Native people coming together."
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