• I did not celebrate “Columbus Day” on Monday; did you? Let’s leave it to Howard Zinn to say it straight:

To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves- unwittingly-to justify what was done. My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)-that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly.

• And on that same note: an open letter to Urban Outfitters about the new line of “tribal” wear. via Racialicious:

All too often industries, sports teams and ignorant individuals legitimize racism under the guise of cultural “appreciation”. There is nothing honorable or historically appreciative in selling items such as the Navajo Print Fabric Wrapped Flask, Peace Treaty Feather Necklace, Staring at Stars Skull Native Headdress T-shirt or the Navajo Hipster Panty. These and the dozens of other tacky products you are currently selling referencing Native America make a mockery of our identity and unique cultures.

• The Nobel Peace Prize of 2011 has been awarded to three amazing champions of women’s rights: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, both of Liberia; and Tawakkul Karman, of Yemen. Read about them and their work here.

• One of my favorite people, Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, speaks and writes for Occupy Wall Street: “the most important thing in the world right now.” via The Nation.

• Soraya Chemaly at Huffington Post proposes a new holiday: Let Your Boy Be A Girl Day. Why we need to eradicate the masculinity police.