Certainly, differing responses to the Columbus Monument controversy should be allowed and respected. But when there are serious misstatements that do not represent the truth, then those must be addressed.
I am in sympathy with and respectful of our Italian American “brothers and sisters” who are The Federation of Italian American Societies in Buffalo, NY for having to make the devastating decision to remove their Columbus Statue from their Buffalo Park. There was fear that the Columbus Statue would be destroyed.
While the 21 women suggest altruistic reasoning was the Federation’s rationale, it is clearly fear that pushed them. The 21 women ascribe integrity, grace and honesty as the motives.
“We don’t want our statue destroyed. We want to prevent its destruction,”said Don Alessi, past president of the Federation. Let these words speak the truth. Anarchic vandals “won the day.” Does one truly think Alessi was pleased to have to change locations?
The 21 women wish to “correct history.” The proper term used today is “cancel history.” Columbus is being used as a scapegoat by these “cancel artists.” How does a man who died in 1506, fourteen years after setting foot in a new hemisphere, get all the blame for over the next five hundred years of history? In fact, he never knew he landed in a different hemisphere truly thinking he was on the shores of China, India or the islands near Japan. These “21” need to read history and learn the truths. They are really concerned about the global impact America has had on the world for over five centuries and they want that erased for some reasons they never discuss. It is “symbolic murder.”
They allude to the 19,000 supportive signatures they have from a website—Change.org. What they don’t tell you is that site is an international site created for thousands of worldwide issues people from around the globe support. All of the Columbus Monument supporters are local in Syracuse and Central New York. The vast majority of their signers have never even seen our Monument nor know where Syracuse is.
The “21 women” espouse that Mayor Walsh’s decision is not solely his decision. It certainly is. The mayor’s Dialog Circles were a subterfuge for a decision he always intended to make with little or no bearing coming from the wasted time Interfaith Works put into months of wasted labor. Just look at the 2019 and 2020 reports on City Hall website. There are suggestions there, not conclusive actions. It is the mayor’s decision and only his.
Their historical comments about Columbus are totally worthless stemming from a brief excursion into fallacious “online history.” I would truly like to know their actual historical references so a debate can be had instead of arguments based on “sand.” What do the terms, “genocidal figure” and “the necessary evils of Columbus” mean? I’m not sure they know.
Finally, I find they are disingenuous in labeling themselves as “21 Italian American women” as though they are writing from that arrogant perspective. Why don’t they state their real perspectives are from the political organizations they belong to such as the Syracuse Peace Council and Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation? Only then can we fully understand who they are and what they truly represent.
