First, Mayor Ben Walsh and our esteemed media would never go after any other ethnic group as they have the Italians. Syracuse, as well as cities across the country, have been set ablaze both literally and figuratively by a variety of groups for the better part of two years and counting \u2014 but reaction to all this rampaging has been practically nil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, Syracuse University\u2019s shadow group of professors has played a more direct role in this affair than the members of the Italian community have. Once it was a fait accompli, Walsh presented it that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, the Onondaga Nation felt that as Indigenous people, they should have a say. There are 365 days in a year, but for them only Columbus Day will do. Interesting how seldom it is mentioned that tribes living between Albany and Waterloo were often paid by the French and then the British to make war and kill the settlers. I guess that would make them as \u201cunpure\u201d as we Italians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Third, most important \u2014 that statue and the plot of ground on which it stands were paid for by struggling people like my grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, and practically every relative I ever loved. They saved and they gave; not one penny came from the taxpayers, the accepted funding method in this \u201cbrave new world\u201d we now inhabit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It would be tedious to remind everyone that Italians were discriminated against from their arrival up to and including World War II when the North Side\u2019s sons signed up in droves to defend a country they loved, but which often didn\u2019t love them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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