Leif Erikson Day?
Today is October 9th, and you may have noticed that your Facebook feed is positively blowing up with “Happy Leif Erikson Day” memes. For a lot of years, that was what members of the AFA called Columbus Day, but that isn’t the beginning of the trouble with this concept. No, that trouble goes all the way back to the 19th century, when many Americans were eager to proclaim a “white dude who wasn’t a Catholic” discoverer of America, rather than a Catholic Italian. So why is it suddenly politically correct and perfectly okay to be proud to proclaim “Happy Leif Erikson Day”? Because on October 8, 2015, via a Presidential Proclamation, an African American man reclaimed it for the rest of us!
President Barack Obama called upon “all Americans to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs to honor our rich Nordic-American heritage”. Now I want you to let that sink in for a minute: Leif Erikson Day finally became an official “thing”, thanks to a person of color! Not only that, but within the text of his proclamation, Barack Obama also used Leif Erikson Day to celebrate immigrants! He said:
Since our Nation’s founding, we have been driven by strength in the face of uncertainty and by a bold spirit of adventure. These defining forces were reflected in the early discovery of our continent when Leif Erikson — a son of Iceland and grandson of Norway — and his team became the first Europeans known to land on North American shores. On Leif Erikson Day, we honor him as an important piece of our shared past with the Norwegian people, and we celebrate the perilous yet rewarding voyage he and his crew undertook one millennium ago.
Leif Erikson’s discovery marks the beginning of a meaningful friendship between Norway and the United States, and we have seen reflections of his team’s journey throughout history. The courage that guided these pioneers to North America was also found in the voyage of six families who braved the unforeseen in 1825 as some of the first immigrants from Norway to the United States. Fleeing religious strife in their homeland in search of liberty’s light, they sailed across the same ocean Erikson traversed more than eight centuries prior. And 190 years ago, these striving newcomers began to weave their unique threads into the fabric of America.President Barack Obama, October 8, 2015, Presidential Proclamation
Today, we pay tribute to those who embarked on these expeditions and recognize the role they played in shaping our legacy as a Nation of immigrants.
Singlehandedly, Barack Obama made this day about inclusion, in the wake of centuries of oppression, racism, nationalism, and a whole host of other ugly stuff. We need to be reminded of this now more than ever, as we sit here, four years later, watching our American dream fall to pieces at the hands of a tyrant. The present administration has given the racists and nationalists permission to be “out and proud”, which has only led to the further theft of Norse symbols by the forces of evil. But four years ago, one man (of color, don’t you forget that for a second!) used that presidential power for good instead, making it clear that this country’s shared Norse heritage knows no such bounds as the ugly simplicity of blood and soil! No, upon these shores, a shared culture has been built, and the longer we keep forgetting that, the uglier things are bound to become.
You see, that’s the thing about culture: it’s meant to be shared. Cultural diffusion is how we’re not all sitting here having this conversation via ochre scrawled on a cave wall in the dark. Cultural diffusion is how we have things like fire and wheels and the internet. In fact, the internet itself is probably the best expression of cultural diffusion since some person somewhere put flint to flint and made a spark. Race can be shared to a certain degree, as can ethnicity, but both of those can also be appropriated by pretenders. The same cannot be said of culture: we cannot pretend art, religion, and the other manifestations of human intellectual achievement. Culture is meant to be communicated. Without such communication, cultures die. Constant fear of “cultural appropriation” is how we are losing entire ways of life daily. Don’t believe me? Do some research on the Saami in Sweden and Norway! For that matter, look right here in the United States on the reservations, where an entire culture is being decimated by drug addiction and alcoholism thanks to years and years of having their culture robbed from them, spat upon, and made less than. Many First Nations people are still languishing in the dark, not because they’ve had their culture appropriated, but because they have not been allowed to express it or share it.
So, as you go through your day today, posting Leif Erikson Day memes, I want you to ponder their deeper implications, because this day was never intended to be about a “white dude discovered America”. This day is about the melting pot of shared culture that America was first dreamed to be.
