I'm Glad That's Taken Care Of

Stacy McCain, Chicago Mayor Solves City’s Crime Problem by Removing Columbus Statues

Chicago has been plagued by riots, vandalism, looting and arson — to say nothing of homicide, which has increased more than 30 percent, with 434 people killed so far this year — but Mayor Lori Lightfoot has solved the problem by eliminating the statues that were causing it:

Chicago’s two Christopher Columbus statues were taken down early Friday morning, nearly one week after protests erupted in the city.
Crews were seen taking down the statues in Grant Park and the city’s Little Italy neighborhood during the overnight hours. By 6 a.m., only the pedestal remained in Grant Park, where the statue stood since 1933 after being dedicated during Chicago’s second World Fair.
“The city of Chicago — at Mayor Lightfoot’s direction — has temporarily removed the Christopher Columbus statues in Grant Park and Arrigo Park until further notice,” the mayor’s office said in a statement. “This action was taken after consultation with various stakeholders. It comes in response to demonstrations that became unsafe for both protesters and police, as well as efforts by individuals to independently pull the Grant Park statue down in an extremely dangerous manner. This step is about an effort to protect public safety and to preserve a safe space for an inclusive and democratic public dialogue about our city’s symbols. In addition, our public safety resources must be concentrated where they are most needed throughout the city, and particularly in our South and West Side communities.”
Reports first surfaced on social media Thursday indicating the statue at Grant Park could be taken down as soon as late Thursday night.
Protesters across the county have called for the removal of statues of Columbus, saying that the Italian explorer is responsible for the genocide and exploitation of native peoples in the Americas.
Still, some Italian-Americans in Chicago said they did not support the move.
“Columbus is a symbol of hope who we’ve celebrated for years and maybe we all forgot why we celebrated Christopher Columbus,” Sergio Giangrande, president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian American said. “To take someone who’s a symbol of hope for us? We are not OK with that.”
Giangrande added, however, that the group understands the safety concerns but hoped for a compromise.
“I can guarantee you that Italian Americans are not happy about this,” he said.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday that she would announce a process in which the city will take inventory of the various monuments, paintings “and other things that memorialize” Chicago’s past and history.
“In time, our team will determine there are no monuments to African Americans in this city,” Lightfoot said. “There are no monuments to women. There are no monuments that reflect the contributions of people in the city of Chicago who contributed to the greatness of this city.” . . .
Last Friday, chaos erupted as clashes broke out during a protest calling for the Grant Park statue’s removal. There, 49 Chicago police officers and four demonstrators were injured. More than a dozen individuals were also arrested. . . .
In June, the Grant Park statue of Christopher Columbus was spray-painted with the letters “BLM” for Black Lives Matter. The following day, vandals hit a statue of President George Washington in the city’s Washington Park, spray painting the words “slave owner” and “God Bless Amerikkka” on the base and placing a white hood over the monument in reference to the Ku Klux Klan.
The Columbus statues in both Grant Park and the city’s Little Italy neighborhood were also vandalized last month.
Statues of Columbus have also been toppled or vandalized in cities such as Miami; Richmond, Virginia; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Boston, where one was decapitated.

Not to mention Baltimore, where he was decapitated and unceremoniously dumped in the harbor, from which a coalition of Italians rescued him.

So you see, these statues have caused all the problems in Chicago, which will immediately become a utopian paradise, now that those provocative racist symbols have been banished from public view.

This innovative approach to crime has inspired me to propose my own bold reform. What if we could eliminate racism by banishing from view anything that caused people to believe negative racist stereotypes or to mutter racial epithets? I can think of one such cause of racism.

Just like the violence in Baltimore suddenly stopped.

Get this woman’s face off TV, and racism will automatically be reduced.

Now, now Stacy, it's not nice to make fun of someone's appearance, and even the undead have feelings. In some cities and states, they can vote and sometimes even be elected Mayor.

As of the year 2000, approximately half a million Chicago residents identified as Italian. Probably not enough to make a difference in the city's or state's elections, but not enough to deliberately insult.

Forget It Jake, It's Baltimore

Da Sun, Christopher Columbus statue near Little Italy brought down, tossed into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Police stood by.

A crowd of shouting protesters yanked down the Christopher Columbus statue near Little Italy, dragged it to the edge of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and rolled it with a splash into the water as fireworks went off around the city on the night of the Fourth of July.

Dedicated in 1984, the statue is the latest monument in the U.S. to fall this year during the national reckoning over racism and police violence that also has toppled statues of Confederate figures and enslavers around the country.
. . .
The torn-down Columbus statue is part of a “re-examination taking place nationally and globally around some of these monuments and statues that may represent different things to different people,” said Lester Davis, a spokesman for Democratic Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, on Saturday night.

“We understand the dynamics that are playing out in Baltimore are part of a national narrative,” Davis said. “We understand the frustrations. What the city wants to do is serve as a national model, particularly with how we’ve done with protesting. We’ve seen people who have taken to the streets, we have supported them. We are going to continue to support it. That’s a full stop.”

So the Democratic Mayor of Baltimore supports the destruction of city property? Good know. If I lived in Baltimore I'd be reluctant to help pay for any more.

The Columbus statue was dragged down as people marched across the city Saturday demanding reallocation of funds from the police department to social services, a reassessment of the public education system, reparations for Black people, housing for the homeless, and the removal of all statues “honoring white supremacists, owners of enslaved people, perpetrators of genocide, and colonizers,” according to a flyer.
. . .
Davis said he did not know whether police officers were ordered to allow the statue to be torn down. But he made clear that protecting statues was not a priority of the city police department in the face of homicides and other violent crime.

“Our officers in Baltimore City, who are some of the finest in country, they are principally concerned with the preservation of life,” the mayor’s spokesman said. “That is sacrosanct. Everything else falls secondary to that, including statues.”

City Council President Brandon Scott issued a statement Saturday night saying he suggested former Mayor Catherine Pugh remove the Columbus statue in 2017 when she ordered the removal of several Confederate monuments in the city following a violent conflict in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“I support Baltimore’s Italian-American community and Baltimore’s indigenous community. I cannot, however, support Columbus,” Scott said.

Huh?

Police maintained distance for much of the protest, which included a march through Fells Point and Harbor East as restaurant patrons dined outdoors on a busy Saturday night. The group stopped briefly outside restaurant Ouzo Bay, which has been come under criticism following a June incident in which Black mother Marcia Grant and her 9-year-old son, Dallas, were denied service at the restaurant. Protesters cheered and applauded patrons who walked out of the eatery in response to their presence.

Weaving among modern apartment buildings and upscale grocery stores, chanting “Black people used to live here,” the group made its way back to the vacant pedestal where the Columbus statue had stood just an hour earlier and applauded their work to take it down.

“This is the only way we can stop hatred,” an organizer bellowed across the crowd.

Huh?

Carved in Italian Carrara marble, the toppled statue was owned by the city and dedicated on Oct. 8, 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan.