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Christopher Columbus decapitated in eponymous park; to be put in warehouse for now
By adamg on Wed, 06/10/2020 - 8:59am
Somebody lopped Columbus's head off in Christopher Columbus Park overnight.
At a press conference this morning, Mayor Walsh said the statue will be put in a warehouse for safekeeping and to allow a discussion about its future given the current situation.
This is not the first time the statue has been the subject of protest.
In Richmond, VA, protesters set their Columbus statue on fire and then threw it in a lake.
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Comments
Not sad about this one bit!
Not sad about this one bit!
Oh dear
Thoughts and prayers for the all incoming comments about how you are racist against Italians now.
My solution for this
If you want to celebrate great Italians, how about a statue of Galileo? He fought for the truth against a hidebound institution that sought to silence him - isn't that the kind of stuff America likes to claim as founding principles?
Or
Enrico Fermi, world class physicist and creator of the nuclear reactor who fled the Nazis and did great things here in America.
Or the countless local Italian-Americans that contributed to our civics and culture here in the Commonwealth.
Giuseppi Verdi, Michelangelo,
Giuseppi Verdi, Michelangelo, Marconi... (That's off the top of my head.)
How about
Amerigo Vespucci - given that the Americas are named after him.
He already has two continents!
that's enough for anyone.
technically, 1 continent.
technically, 1 continent. the isthmus of panama is broken by a non-natural canal.
heres another one: some geologist define that terrestrially speaking, madagascar is a continent (since its severed from the african continental shelf) and antarctica is not a continent (since it has no land -- only frozen water; therefor, its defined to be a polar ice cap).
also australia is an island on the continent of oceana.
[i am not a scientist -- just some guy on the internet that pretends to know stuff.]
Technically
Padua is Boston’s...
...sister city, so Galileo for the win!
The Bristol Brits Had the Right Idea
Dump him in the harbor.
They had it easier - the one
They had it easier - the one in Bristol was made of hollow bronze. The Boston Columbus statue is solid marble.
on the other hand, they don't
on the other hand, they don't have to drag it far, especially at high tide.
Shameful behavior
Shameful behavior
Totall agree...
Yes, Columbus' behavior was very, very shameful.
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day
Totally
but can you clarify? Do you mean Columbus enslaving the natives he met on landing in the Caribbean or forcing conversion to Christianity on them?
Fun Columbus statue fact - it was only erected in 1979 under the stewardship of local right wing goon Arthur Stivaletta who famously was pro-Vietnam war among other things and, additional fun fact, lived in Dedham not Boston. Fuck him and fuck his statue.
A wiki page was created for
A wiki page was created for him in 2019. That was a fun read...
For Anthony?
That's where I got my info but it mostly seemed supported with citations to news stories so not slanderous.
That guy sure loved burning flags.
It's just a tribute to Columbus's work!
Although, they should have gone whole hog and paraded it around the streets as a warning to other statues.
That’s sad
I don’t agree with this.
Yeah
they left too much of it standing.
Cool Name
When I was a kid, we used to go to Eponymous Park all the time. I loved the roller coaster.
I remember that coaster
And they only played REM on the loudspeakers as you got in and out of the cars.
Good job! He was a crook, a
Good job! He was a crook, a thief and a liar. Why the hell was he a hero? Should've pushed him in the water but he'd contaminate our beautiful ocean. We need nature right now.
He was adopted as a hero by Italian immigrants in the 19th
Century. The thinking was Columbus meant Italians discovered America and therefore should be welcome here. (Italians, like all immigrant groups, faced a lot of heat when they came here in large numbers.)
To be fair at that time no one really knew what a bastard he was, cutting the hands off of people unless the kept bringing him gold and living like Colonel Kurtz in the DR. But we are all grown up now and the statue has to go. Time to adopt another icon but please don't let it be a soccer player.
Italians had it worse than many immigrant groups
And they were very specifically not viewed as white.
They sure did
... but not in 1979 when this statute went up. They were part of the power structure by then, much like the Irish. This is a guy practicing grievance politics from beyond the grave, as he intended.
Wasn't it revealed that he is
Wasn't it revealed that he is in fact of Portuguese descent from DNA testing?
Stick the Head of Columbus on a Pike at North Station
Let it be a warning to people coming into town that this is how we handle racists now.
One of the best comments ever!!!
One of the best comments ever!!!
Meanwhile in Roslindale
Dapper's plaque proudly remains, as it is on private property.
Should have left his head but
Should have left his head but cut off his hands and watched him bleed to death. That wouldn't be vandalism, rather it would be "adding historical context" like some have proposed doing with confederate loser statues rather than removing those.
For anybody who might be
For anybody who might be upset by this, I highly recommend reading the first chapter of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" and seeing if you still feel the same way.
Fair enough
I will put that book next on my non-work reading list. It's important to expose oneself to ideas one might not necessarily agree with.
However, there are two separate issues: whether Columbus should have a public statue, and whether it is right for a vandal to deface such a statute.
If Columbus should not have a statue, the citizens should petition, organize and go though a public process to remove it. It is what separates civilization from anarchy. Seattle has a statue of Lenin, the man who carried out the Red Terror and killing of peasant farmers, among others. I don't think he should have a statue, but it is wrong for me to deface it.
Lots of people are ready to
Lots of people are ready to demand change, right now, and it's a long time coming. This same fight for a voice and for equality has been fought over and over and over throughout the decades. So far, systemic, institutionalized racism has won out each time.
So you'll hopefully forgive people that are sick of trying to use that same system, that has by design never served them, to advocate for change.
As MLK said, America "has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."
So let's focus our energy on listening to what BIPOC are saying, and not worry about a racist statue.
Boston City Council is
Boston City Council is already half BIPOC. Have they even held a hearing yet about renaming the park?
Lot's on the schedule
They did get one done already: https://www.universalhub.com/2019/dudley-square-of...
"They" (the council) didn't
"They" (the council) didn't even get that one done. That renaming was voted down in a citywide ballot and only happened because the Mayor decided to override the voters.
Where is this schedule with lots of renamings, anyway?
Wrong
That renaming was supposed to only be on the ballot in Roxbury and adjacent neighborhoods, but a court said they couldn't do that so it went to city-wide vote. Walsh said before the vote that the results in Roxbury/adjacent would hold the most weight with the city, and resolution passed there by a wide margin.
All Hail Glorious Leader Lenin
That statue of Lenin in Fremont was put there as a joke, just like the troll under the bridge. Also it's been "defaced" plenty of times. Whether or not the joke is in poor taste is a different and open question.
Here, the idea that we're supposed to revere and honor Columbus, a man who literally killed off an entire people, IS the joke. It never should've been put there in the first place and sometimes a little non-violent action is called for against an unjust state...or stat..ue as the case may be.
But who decides?
Who decides when something is "just" and when that "sometimes" is now? I'm not losing sleep over a statue. But the underlying principal I disagree with. Maybe people have tried to have the statue removed before? Have they tried recently? In this current environment such a proposition seems likely.
Win-win: take down the statue
Win-win: take down the statue and rename it Menino Park.
Only if
The dedication is spoken in entirely unintelligible English.
Haha I guess it's funny to
Haha I guess it's funny to mock people with speech impediments... grow up, frat boy.
Christopher Columbine Park.
Christopher Columbine Park.
Menino Park
I remember that suggestion came up shortly after he died. The problem was, and is, that there is already a Menino Park in Charlestown, next to Spaulding Rehab Hospital.
I had my heart set on
I had my heart set on building the Tom Menino Velodrome on a vacant industrial parcel near Readville Station in time for the 2024 Olympics.
Never mind Boston
Columbus never even set foot in North America.
His legend is a myth intertwined with the history of the first Italian-Americans struggling to assimilate in a new country.
There are far more worthy Italian-Americans that have closer ties (themselves tangential as well) to the region than Columbus.
Philip Mazzei, for one.
i think he is buried in saïnt
i think he is buried in saïnt-dominigue.
statue
We should honor the memory of a great Italian Bostonian named Mayor Tom Menino! ❤️
or maybe a sanzo and venzetti
or maybe a sanzo and venzetti memorial ?
No harm done, just needs a new (different) head
I love how neatly the head popped off, leaving a metal post ready to receive the head of somebody more worthy of the honor. There is absolutely no need to tear down the statue. I mean, c'mon, isn't the body pretty generic? Maybe we could have a contest for selecting the new head. Maybe the winner with be Statuey McStatueface. I could live with that.
Ok but one rule
Mario and Luigi are not acceptable candidates. Or Wario or Waluigi.
I vote
for Jebediah Springfield. I mean, his head needs a body and this body needs a head.
That seems like more
of a Shelbyville idea.
That's a perfectly cromulent idea
After all, he really embiggened this country.
44 comments and nobody makes
44 comments and nobody makes a simpsons reference??