WORLD WAR COLUMBUS: A New Year of War ….

9 January 2022

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In the USA, The National Italian American Foundation, in conjunction with the National Christopher Columbus Association, is now accepting applications for its annual Christopher Columbus Essay Contest. The contest involves high school students of any ethnic background throughout the United States, grades 9 through 12 – public, private, parochial or home school – writing on a topic related to Christopher Columbus. Three essays will be chosen for a cash prize: First Prize is $1,200 and an all-expense-paid trip to Washington to read the essay at the Columbus Day event there. Second Prize is $500 and Third Prize is $300. The mission is to foster an environment for an open and academically sound dialogue on Christopher Columbus and the events and accomplishments surrounding him. To submit an essay, visit: https://www.niaf.org/programs/niaf-ncca-christopher-columbus-essay-contest/. E-mail [email protected] with any questions.

In Philadelphia PA, il professore, Robert F. Petrone, begins the New Year with a 6-class series debunking the Eight Slanders against Christopher Columbus. The first of the six classes, “Episode 35: Debunking the Myth of Columbus As a Racist,” aired on January 5, 2022, and can now be heard at the 19-minute, 55-second mark (19:55) of the January 5th program, and will soon be archived on its own at the Radio Voice Italia website. Episodes 36 through 40 will air each Wednesday from January 9 through February 9, 2022, and be archived within days of airing.

In Hoboken NJ, the city has unveiled a 6-foot bronze statue of Frank Sinatra by renowned sculptor Carolyn D. Palmer on the anniversary of his 106th birthday, at Sinatra Park on Sinatra Drive. Frank Sinatra shares something in common with Christopher Columbus, he, too, was a civil rights activist of Italian descent. In the 1960s, Las Vegas was racially segregated: African-Americans were not permitted to book rooms in most hotels, including Sammy Davis, Junior! Sinatra called for boycotts of these establishments and told their owners that none of the Rat Pack would be staying or performing in their establishments unless they lifted that racist ban. Indeed, it worked. Las Vegas began the racial integration of its hotels. While the display of a Sinatra statue can definitely be seen as a tribute to a supreme performer and someone who did a great deal for civil rights in the 1960s, it does seem somewhat like damage control by Mayor Ravi S. Bhalla, whom, we have not forgotten, dispensed with the annual Italian flag-raising ceremony on Christopher Columbus Day this past year. Italian American OneVoice Coalition President Manny Alfano wrote to Mayor Bhalla on behalf of Hoboken’s Italian American community about the mayor’s act of damnatio memoriae of the flag-raising ceremony, “your residents … are disappointed because there is no flag-raising ceremony in October to honor their Italian heritage….Celebrating some ethnicities and not others is not equal treatment [n]or [does it] represent[ ] an inclusive atmosphere….Why does Hoboken NJ not fly the Italian Flag during Italian-American Heritage and Culture Month? Flying the Italian flag during the month of October would send a signal to your Italian American residents that you recognize their contribution to Hoboken and also their ancestors that came before them that helped build the Hoboken you know today. We would like to discuss this issue with your office and look forward to your prompt response.” Mayor Bhalla never responded to the Italian American OneVoice Coalition’s letter.

In Blackwater Locality No. 1 NM, an archaeological site between the towns of Clovis and Portales NM, archaeologists have discovered a fluted, stone projectile point – like an arrowhead – dating back eleven thousand to twelve thousand years ago, to the prehistoric Pleistocene era. The projectile point’s design and dating associate it with the mysterious “Clovis people,” named for Clovis NM, near which many of these artifacts have been found. Little is known about the mysterious “Clovis people” except that they long preexisted the arrival, over the Bering Strait, of the Asiatic tribal colonizers that now call themselves “Native Americans” or, more inappropriately, the “indigenous peoples” of the Americas. The Clovis artifact, measuring only 4.8 cm by 2.6 cm, carries enormous significance despite its diminutive size: not only is it the first example of human presence in the region, suggesting that ancient hunters took advantage of the arrival to the wetlands in that region of megafauna – such as mammoths, mastodons, bison and large birds, among others – but it further corroborates recent DNA evidence proving that the tribal peoples of the Americas were not the first people to inhabit the Americas, making them just another in a long line of colonizers of the Americas (and, thus, defeating their claims that they have “primacy” on the lands of the Americas).

For more information about these and other news stories regarding the worldwide fight to preserve Christopher Columbus’s legacy and Western culture, listen to Robert F. Petrone’s weekly, 20-minute segment on Radio Voice Italia at: