WORLD WAR COLUMBUS: Battle Scars and Undeterred Resolve

In 21 countries across the planet, Radio Voice Italia listeners have rung in the new year with, so far, five classes of a six-class series from il Professore Robert Petrone of “Christopher Columbus University,” each dedicated to debunking one of the eight slanders regularly and falsely levied against Christopher Columbus — that he was supposedly a racist, rapist, maimer, murderer, slave-trader, slave-owner, grifter and genocidaire.  Class number 35, Debunking the Myth of Columbus As a Racist; class number 36, Debunking the Myth of Columbus As a Rapist; class number 37, Debunking the Myth of Columbus As a Maimer; and class number 38, Debunking the Myth of Columbus As a Murderer/Genocidaire, are currently archived for listening at the embedded links.  Class number 39, Debunking the Myth of Columbus As a Slave-Owner/Slave-Trader, aired tonight, Wednesday, February 2, 2022, on Radio Voice Italia and will be archived soon.  The final class of the six-part series, class number 40, Debunking the Myth of Columbus As a Grifter, will air on Wednesday, February 9, 2022, on Radio Voice Italia.  Whenever you hear someone repeat any of the slanders, you can send that person the link specifically debunking the lie.

In Philadelphia PA, Federal Court Judge C. Darnell Jones has dismissed the civil rights lawsuit of the 1492 Society, Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations and other litigants brought against the mayor for replacing Christopher Columbus Day with the misnomer “Indigenous People’s Day,” on the basis that the claim lacked any “particularized discriminatory impact or injury.”  Plaintiffs’ attorney George Bochetto, Esquire, reports that he is appealing to the 3rd Circuit US Court of Appeals on the basis that Judge Jones failed to consider the stark pattern of Anti-Italian discrimination by the mayor leading his cancelling Columbus Day, and only dismissed for lack of standing as to each issue of the Mayor’s conduct in isolation, rather than as a whole, a factual question that should not have been decided by the court. Meanwhile, Attorney Bochetto is simultaneously fighting in Pennsylvania Supreme Court – the Commonwealth’s highest appellate court — the City’s appeal of Common Pleas Court Judge Paula Patrick’s order preventing the City and its mayor from removing its Christopher Columbus Statue from Marconi Plaza.  Judge Patrick filed an advisory opinion to the Supreme Court in support of her order which Attorney Bochetto characterizes as “incredibly well-thought-out and ha[ving] significance far beyond this case.”  The opinion addresses the City’s failure to comply with the Philadelphia Code and other due processes in its attempts to remove the statue, and how the City’s rationale for wanting to remove the statue was “clearly arbitrary and inconsistent with the Philadelphia Code.”  Oral arguments have not yet been scheduled in Supreme Court in the matter.

In NYC, Mayor Eric Leroy Adams, a former police officer who was recently elected to the Big Apple’s chief executive position, pledged, during his candidacy, that he was opposed to removing the City’s Christopher Columbus statue.  His most recent appointments of several prominent Italian Americans to his administration seem to support that, including, First Deputy Mayor Lorraine Grillo, Chief of Staff Frank Carone, Deputy Mayor of Operations James Oddo and “Efficiency Czar” Lorraine La Rocca.  Best of luck to Mayor Adams and his new cabinet and staff.