Don’t Defend Columbus—Celebrate Him

The Italian explorer who opened America to the West deserves tribute.

Dave Seminara October 9, 2020

 

After a summer of assaults on Christopher Columbus’s legacy, it’s a small miracle that Columbus Day is still hanging on as a federal holiday. Columbus has been under attack since at least 1980, when Howard Zinn vilified him in his anti-American polemic A People’s History of the United States. More recently, Columbus’s reputation has come under attack like never before. Dozens of Columbus statues have been vandalized, and at least 33 cities have taken down their Columbus statues, from Sacramento to New Haven. In June, a 1,600-pound bronze statue of Columbus—located just a few miles from Joe Biden’s 6,850 square foot mansion—was removed. It’s unlikely that anyone in the media will ask Biden for his opinion on the matter.

Chicago’s Columbus purge was the most violent—49 police officers were hurt there in July after coming under attack from rioters attempting to topple a statue in Grant Park. Protesters pelted police with sharpened pipes, frozen water bottles, rocks, and other weapons. Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered all three of the city’s Columbus statues to be taken down in the dead of night; their fate is under review. Several local politicians, seemingly more preoccupied with Columbus than with addressing the city’s spiraling murder rate, cheered on the rioters. Alderman Daniel La Spata said (none too coherently) of the mayhem, “last night’s protest at the Columbus statue was a direct expression of the use of state violence to protect white supremacy.”..........To Read More.....