Andrew Cuomo Thinks People Hate Columbus Because He's Italian
Seriously what?
Four years after being accused of sexual harassment by at least 11 women and subsequently citing, in all seriousness, “cultural behavioral differences” (ie: being he’s Italian-American) as an excuse for his behavior, Andrew Cuomo is now out here claiming that people only hate Christopher Columbus because he was Italian (which he was not, since Italy didn’t even exist at that time).
“Many of our leaders were anti-Semitic, right? John D. Rockefeller. Woodrow Wilson was questioned. But no, they want to take down the Columbus statue, right?” Politico reports Cuomo said at an April 16 Italians for Cuomo fundraiser. “Easy target, right? That’s the Italian. And we’re going to attack the Italian statue.”
What?
No. Really. What?
First of all, the only statues of Woodrow Wilson are in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Poland. There was one in Austin, Texas, but it was removed in 2015. I cannot find any statues of Rockefeller anywhere (though, sure, the guy does have a few things named after him).
Second, as objectionable as those men were, they were not going around kidnapping women and giving them to people to rape, cutting off people’s body parts for varying reasons, enslaving people, etc. etc. (That’s Columbus, not Cuomo, whose behavior was quite bad enough.)
Third — again, what?
Saying people hate Columbus because he was Italian is like saying that people dislike Hitler because they can’t stand men with questionable facial hair choices. Columbus’s being Italian — which he wasn’t, really, because “Italy” didn’t exist back then — is absolutely nowhere on anyone’s list of issues with Christopher Columbus. It’s certainly not on mine, largely because I am also Italian-American.
And, not only do I not want to celebrate a genocidal maniac, I have also never reached my hands up a co-worker’s blouse and groped them. Incredible, I know.
But Andrew Cuomo does, and has promised that, if he is elected mayor of New York City, he will bring back Columbus Day celebrations.
“Indigenous Peoples’ Day? Beautiful. Just not on Columbus Day!” Cuomo told the crowd that day. “If I’m lucky enough to be mayor — or unlucky enough to be mayor — we’re going to have an Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we’ll find (a day), we’ll celebrate, but we’re going to have Christopher Columbus Day in New York City.”
Great. So we’ll all know who is on Team Genocide.
“Columbus Day is a day of pride for Italian Americans with modern roots stemming from the national outrage of the lynching of 11 innocent Italian immigrants in 1891,” Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said in a statement. “Protecting Columbus Day has been a long standing position of his and he’s always said there’s room for Indigenous People Day, as well as historically accurate education about Christopher Columbus and his voyage to America, warts and all.”
You know, I hear this a lot, and I have an idea. How about, instead of honoring Christopher Columbus — who died 399 years before those 11 innocent men were lynched — in their stead, we have a day memorializing them? Because let me tell you, that is an incident that was largely forgotten about until fairly recently (I know, because I was the first person to tell a whole lot of people about it), so clearly Columbus Day did not ever serve the purpose of reminding people about it.
Now, I get that when he was growing up, when some of my relatives were growing up, there was still a certain amount of prejudice against Italian-Americans, and that people mostly didn’t know about Columbus’s crimes against humanity (and also thought he was proving that the world was round, which everyone knew in 1492 anyway). Indeed, a lot of the really bad shit did not come out until 2006, when Spanish historians discovered a 48-page document compiled by Francisco de Bobadilla, who had replaced Columbus as Governor of the West Indies.
But we do know these things now and there is no getting around that.
There is also not a whole lot of anti-Italian discrimination these days, beyond people on social media getting inordinately excited about Italian people having Italian names. I will admit, when it looked like Pierbattista Pizzaballa was gonna be the next Pope, I was a tad apprehensive — particularly after the week of Luigi Mangione-related Super Mario Brothers commentary. But that’s about it, unless you count people assuming that I am good at cooking (which to be fair, I absolutely am) or that I could have them killed (not going to discourage that, it keeps them in line).
In fact, in all of my years on this planet, only one person has suggested that sexual harassment is part of my culture, or that I must willing to tolerate the celebration of someone who sold 9 and 10-year-old girls into sexual slavery, and that person is Andrew Cuomo.
We have great food, great wine, wonderful artists, actors, directors, writers, musicians, singers, activists and a ton of other things to celebrate (also a lot of very terrible politicians we’d rather not). Why on earth should we tie a celebration of those things to a genocidal maniac? That is what is insulting. Why would anyone want a day marred by that kind of thing, when we have so many better people we could honor instead?
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
We don’t get Columbus Day off. I’m thinking of driving to Yosemite that day and telling my boss I’m celebrating by getting lost on my way to work.
We should definitely pick a different Italian to celebrate, like Mother Cabrini, a Catholic nun who helped immigrants in New York. She even became naturalized and was the first American saint. There was a recent movie about her. Since we have an American pope, why not celebrate Frances Cabrini as well?