Columbus Day deleted with the executive order of James Kenney. Filitalia International doesn’t agree with Kenney’s decisions and and proposes another day for Tribal People’s Day in Philadelphia
Columbus Day what’s happening to the memory of the Italian navigator? In the last days, James Kenney, major of Philadelphia, decided to delate Columbus’ Day in favour of Tribal People’s Day. Filitalia International & Foundation doesn’t agree with the executive order of Kenney for the redenomination of Columbus’ Day. The Italian-American association wrote a communication to inform everyone of the incident and convince the mayor of Philadelphia to change his mind.
Columbus Day deleted?
“The Italian-American community in Philadelphia, and indeed across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the nation, considers James Kenney’s executive order to eliminate Christopher Columbus Day in Philadelphia to be a calculated strike against the very soul of Italian Americans across this nation” – writes Filitalia International.
“We know that Mr. Kenney and his mayoral staff have been informed by experts in the field – continues the communication – including historian, anthropologist, educator and author, Professor Carol Delaney, and professional researcher, attorney and civil rights author, Robert F. Petrone, Esquire, that the slanderous lies against Christopher Columbus being a racist / rapist / maimer / murderer / genocidal maniac that have driven the mayor’s executive order are nothing more than myths and political calumny that the primary sources have flatly debunked”.
Cristopher Columbus and the civil rights
“In fact, as Mr. Petrone has pointed out – we can read in the note – the primary sources categorically establish that Christopher Columbus was the first civil rights activist of the Americas, consistently and persistently advocating for granting the tribal peoples of the West Indies full rights and protections as Spanish citizens”.
“Christopher Columbus’s civil rights activism included, among a great many other noble deeds – continues the philanthropic association – engaging in the first “underground railroad” of the Americas, rescuing Tainos from capture and enslavement and murder by the Carib and Canib tribes; prohibiting the enslavement and forced labor of the tribal peoples of the West Indies by the Spanish nobles who desired them to build their settlements; and successfully petitioning the crown of Spain to enact the first civil rights legislation of the Americas, forever securing an impregnable decree from the highest authority protecting the indigenes from enslavement or any other mistreatment”.
Francisco de Bobadilla or Christopher Columbus?
“The primary historical sources and the experts have repeatedly demonstrated – supports Filitalia International & Foundation – that Columbus detractors like James Kenney are conflating the villainy and atrocities of Francisco de Bobadilla, Columbus’s arch-nemesis, with Columbus himself, in a masterstroke of ignorance”.
Is James Kenney against Italian-American community?
“Given that James Kenney has been fully informed – it’s written in the communication – on countless occasions of what the primary historical sources and the experts who have collectively spent lifetimes studying them have revealed about Columbus as a hero of Western Culture and civil rights – including at public, municipal hearings and by myriad written correspondences – his actions demonstrate more than a willful ignorance of the truth. They demonstrate an unmitigated contempt for Italian-Americans, a purposeful attempt at damnatio memoriae against our people and heritage, and a return to the Italophobia that plagued our nation in the late Nineteenth and early-to-mid Twentieth Centuries”.
“The United States of America – supports Filitalia – has come too far to regress into the divisiveness, bigotry and ethnic sectarianism that James Kenney’s executive order promotes. Western culture brought the world Judeo Christian ethics and morals, Greco-Roman democracy and law, and the unique idea that all are equal in the eyes of their creator. Its heroes, such as Christopher Columbus, should be recognized and venerated”.
Columbus Day and Tribal People’s Day in Philadelphia
“The Italian-American community gladly welcomes the establishment of a Tribal People’s Day in Philadelphia – continues the note – as Christopher Columbus, the greatest advocate of the tribal peoples of the West Indies, would have desired. We demand, however, that such a municipal holiday not replace Columbus Day, but enjoy its own separate day so that the greatest hero of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, High Admiral and Governor Christopher Columbus, may be honored as he deserves”.
No to the executive order to eliminate Columbus Day
“The Italian-American community in Philadelphia, in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and across the country, in the interest of our democratic system and our one nation under God – ends the press relase – demand that the Kenney administration rescind the executive order to eliminate and rename Christopher Columbus Day. Any failure to do so constitutes a failure by James Kenney to govern morally and democratically, and places him among the liars, villains and misanthropists of history”.
