Columbus Is Racist, Says Columbus
July 3 | Posted by mrossol | American Thought, Critical TheoryWhat a sad, sad, commentary on the “State of the Union”. Not to mention the lack of backbone of the Columbus city mayor.
WSJ 7/3/2020
The city of Columbus, Ohio, this week unceremoniously evicted a 16-foot bronze statue . . . of Christopher Columbus. “For many people in our community, the statue represents patriarchy, oppression and divisiveness,” said Mayor Andrew Ginther, giving the removal order two weeks ago. “That does not represent our great city.”
Which great city, precisely? He forgot to mention. Or perhaps the mayor is going to start referring to his town euphemistically as “Ohio’s capital” and so forth, the way some people refuse to say the name of the Washington Redskins football team. This could make campaigning for his re-election rather awkward: Vote Ginther for mayor of [Unmentionable Racist].
Don’t laugh, because a petition at change.org has 118,000 signatures—an eighth of Columbus’s population—to rechristen the city Flavortown. That would reflect the region’s status as “one of the nation’s largest test markets for the food industry,” while honoring the enduring legacy of a Columbus native, the celebrity chef Guy Fieri. Alas, the petition’s creator has since apologized. Renaming the city, he says, “should be a fight led by those most affected,” and “as a white male, I don’t have a say in this.”
A columnist for the Columbus Dispatch noodled—jokingly?—that because “it’s always dangerous to name something after humans,” how about: Pleistocene, Ohio. Is the unpronounceable symbol once used by the musician Prince available again, or would that be cultural appropriation of Minnesota? A letter to the Dispatch had a bold idea: “Cowed, Ohio.”
The statue of Columbus sat in front of Columbus City Hall for 65 years. It was a gift from the people of Genoa, Italy. Now the mayor’s office says it’s “in safekeeping at a secure city facility.” What a blow to U.S.-Italy relations. At least he could offer to give the statue back. A second Columbus likeness, a marble of the navigator pointing west, was booted last month by Columbus State Community College, where it used to stand in the downtown Discovery District.
The mayor’s office says the unelected Columbus Art Commission will launch a “participatory process” to find new art that “offers a shared vision for the future.” Good luck. “Let’s just leave the space empty,” one Dispatch letter suggested, “because if not everyone is happy should anyone be happy?” What a sad sign of the times.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/columbus-is-racist-says-columbus-11593730869?mod=opinion_lead_pos4
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