A couple months ago, we saw the “alt right” going berserk — to the point where one of them drove into a crowd — over the prospect of Confederate statues being taken down, in Charlottesville, VA. Well, it appears that was only the start of a whole lot of irrationality and immaturity where statues are concerned.
Today was Columbus Day, and as WTNH-TV in New Haven, CT reports, statues of Christopher Columbus around New England were vandalized (Archive.Is cached article):
Across New England on Columbus Day, people are taking stances, vandalizing statues of Christopher Columbus.
In Connecticut alone, vandals spray-painted on or around statues in four cities and towns, including Middletown, Bridgeport, Norwalk, and in New Haven’s Wooster Square over the weekend.
OK, look, I get it. I studied history in college (and have a degree in the subject). I know Christopher Columbus was a horrible person. He did awful things. Really, there’s no need to convince me. I get it. Honest.
I know, for example, that Columbus wasn’t really revered prior to the publication of his biography by Washington Irving. Through the 19th century, veneration of Columbus became a point of pride for ethnic Italians, and other Catholics, in the US. The anniversary of his landing in the New World wasn’t even made a national holiday until 1937. So there isn’t really that extensive a tradition behind it.
I also know that opposition to Columbus-worship isn’t new (cached). And that he was guilty of more than a few atrocities.
But … vandalizing Columbus statues? Really?! Is it absolutely necessary to deface, damage or destroy other people’s property? Can’t veneration of Columbus be protested in other — less criminal — ways? Have things really reached the point where people are too childish to understand this is wrong?
This just goes to show, it’s not just Rightists or religionists who can be fiercely militant, irrational, and immature. The Left, and anarchists, are more than capable of it, too.
Oh, and Italian-Americans getting their knickers in knots because of the backlash against Columbus Day, isn’t all that much more mature (cached). Why can’t everyone just grow the fuck up already?
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.
