The Southampton Board of Education opted Tuesday night to postpone any decision on a proposal to change the name of Columbus Day on the district calendar to “Indigenous Day,” a request made by students and supported by members of the Shinnecock Indian Nation.Instead, board members this week adopted a generic calendar for 2016-17, one for planning purposes that designates only the days when school is in session—but said they will make a decision on the Columbus Day issue before August.“Our feeling is, this is the best way to go forward,” said Board President Heather McCallion. “We are in the midst of budget season—we have to get our budget finished. We don’t want to lose sight of all those things while we’re debating the calendar.”The vote was not unanimous, however, as board member Roberta Hunter, a member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, was in favor of resolving the issue that night. “I really cannot stand with a vote of a generic calendar at this time,” she said.The adoption of the generic calendar seemed to frustrate dozens of people from all over Long Island who had packed into the intermediate school cafeteria for Tuesday night’s board meeting to present their arguments for and against the change. Many, if not all, wanted a decision made that night.“We’re having this discussion, we’re having this debate, as a result of our children, your children—your schoolchildren—so you should be proud of that,” said Charles Smith, a member of the tribe, referring to seventh-graders who wrote letters to the School Board in 2014 asking to change the name of the school holiday, after studying the Italian explorer. “[The board] can’t let these children down.”“A generic calendar is not the answer. It’s disrespectful for both sides,” said Keith Wilson of Massapequa, a former member of the Plainedge Board of Education, who also serves as secretary for the Order Sons of Italy in America’s Commission on Social Justice. “As a leader, you have to lead. Board members are the community leaders. If anybody here on this board adopts a generic calendar, they should be voted out, come the May budget vote.”Members of the Shinnecock Indian Nation stressed that because Christopher Columbus killed thousands of native people when he arrived in what is now the Bahamas, an Italian such as Amerigo Vespucci or Galileo Galilei should be celebrated instead.“Every day, I wake up in the same place my family strived, died, sweated and bled. And the reason why we’re still there is because we fought,” said tribe member Fordel Willis. “Columbus, and a lot of other people, have explored, destroyed, and taken.“Go home and wake up every day and fight the next person that tries to come and take [your home] from you, and then you’ll understand why Indigenous Day is important to us,” Mr. Willis continued. “Indigenous Day should be every day, especially in the United States of America.”Those against the removal of Columbus Day from the calendar argued that while they believed Native Americans and other ethnic groups deserved their own holiday as well, it did not justify eliminating another.“We have a Trump phenomenon in the country, and it’s because of a lot of people like you, trying to kick the can down the road,” said the Reverend Donald Havrilla, pastor of the Southampton Full Gospel Church. “This is not about our indigenous people. We have problems over the years with civil rights, everything else, but they’re not going to be fixed by taking one holiday away. Give another holiday—the Native Americans deserve it. They’ve been pushed out of this country, there’s no question about it. But you don’t gain something by taking away from other people.“We elected you—and I’m from Southampton—to state your case,” Rev. Havrilla added. “And if you can’t do that, then who needs you?”After the School Board agreed to push off the decision until later in the year, Kenneth Coard, a member of the tribe, said that he found it hard to believe school officials were taking arguments into consideration from people who don’t live in the district, as many of the speakers who spoke against changing the name of Columbus Day were from western Suffolk County.“These people can’t even vote in this district. They don’t have any children in the district,” Mr. Coard said. “Yet, these individuals who just left … they were able to give you a moment of pause, and they have no vested interest in this community whatsoever.”While Ms. McCallion agreed with Mr. Coard, she noted that the district has received a number of emails and letters from district residents who were opposed changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Day, and that the board wanted to hear both sides of the argument before further discussing the matter.“We are a very, very diverse community. We want community involvement,” she said. “There is no intent to exclude any particular ethnicity from being celebrated.”
Alyssa Melillo on Mar 16, 2016