Convos with Pro-Colombos: Insight #1 You’re Right, Columbus Is a Symbol.

About This Series

Coming out of 2020, what struck me was the deep need to ​try to build understanding and bridges among people who are on differing sides of the culture war because if we’re not sincerely trying to understand why people on the other side aren’t budging and seeing how we can resolve issues amongst ourselves, I worry that we might wind up in serious long-term trouble here in the States.

This is Part 1 of a 3-part series. In this part, we take a look at a piece of the puzzle that us Contro-Colombos (Against Colombus Supporters) have been missing.

This is a good faith conversation. Any nastiness in feedback including hate speech or cancel culture puritanism is just going to get you blocked.

The original video may be viewed via YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7-tNeVWldk&t=2s

Transcript

Hi, my name is Rebecca Ginamarie, pronouns she/her. I’m a contro-columbo — that means against Columbus- Italian-Sicilian-American who supports Indigenous People’s Day.

And in this photo is one of our Italian immigrant ancestors, Camilla Teoli. I’ll get into her story in the next video.

I’m doing this series because I spent some time listening to Pro-Columbo arguments this year, and I learned a couple of things. This video series speaks to Pro-Columbos, this first part in particular speaks to Contro Columbos and Pro-Columbos of any cultural background, but especially those of Italian descent.

The reason I’m doing this is coming out of 2020 the thing that struck me is the need to try to build bridges and understanding among people who are on differing sides of the culture war because quite frankly it scares me how intense and hot some of the conflicts are getting.

I think at this point if we’re not trying to understand why the other side won’t budge on an issue, we might wind up in serious long-term trouble here in the States.

This is a good faith conversation. Any nastiness in the comments including hate speech or cancel culture puritanism is just going to get you blocked.

So with that said, here’s the first insight I gained by listening to Pro-Colombo Italians. The first one is you’re right, Columbus is a cultural symbol. He’s a symbol. That’s the thing I heard over and over again from Pro-Columbo arguments, articles, conversations.

There’s a very sizable number of Pro-Columbos who state over and over that it’s about Columbus being a symbol of the culture rather than about the history itself. Now we do have some Italians who are deeply attached to Columbus specifically. Sometimes it’s direct, overt racism, sometimes there’s other reasons. That’s a conversation for a different video, but the main thing I saw — and a big message that I think us Contro-Colombos have been missing or ignoring — is that Columbus works as a symbol for the sizable amount of the Italian-American community.

This occurred because our ancestors who were put down, discriminated against — and by the way — it wasn’t that long ago, we’ve got living elders who went through this — they put this symbol together and worked this celebration into being during those times .

So, it’s a symbol, there’s legacy, there was a lot of humanity that went into building this day in the way that it winds up functioning as an Italian-American heritage day on top of the celebration that’s national around the historic and symbolic figure of Christopher Columbus.

I think a lot of us Contro Colombos, regardless of what cultural community we come from, are either aren’t aware or don’t think that its function as Italian Heritage Day matters because the thing that we focus on is how badly and deeply traumatizing the history and celebration of Columbus is for the Indigenous Community, and I stand by that.

Since that’s the angle we’re coming from, though, our approach has tended to be to write off absolutely everything that a Pro-Columbo is saying: “It’s just racist, ignorant, violent, punto. There’s nothing else to look at.”

But when I was reading Pro-Columbo discussion, there was this other piece about it being a cultural symbol that popped up and it really struck me as actually being very understandably human to want to hold on to this.

Now what I realize is unintentionally there’s a bit of hypocrisy in the Contro Columbo approach because we’re not stopping and saying: “Oh hey, while we’re getting this done, taking down Columbus, putting up Indigenous People’s Day, there’s this other piece that should be taken care of for the Italian community. Columbus day has this heritage day, it comes from tough history. You know, what can we do to solve for that? Can we leave space for that?” It’s never really been considered.

Now I wouldn’t expect this from the Indigenous community who’s working on Indigenous People’s Day. Not with everything they’ve been through and continue to go through. I also don’t think us Contro Columbos who are outside that community have had a good chance to think about this piece.

It wasn’t really until I reflected this year that it kind of popped up like, “Oh actually, this is kind of important.” So, since none of us have stopped and kind of noticed that this is a piece of what Pro-Columbos are saying is based on hard history, it’s a lot of cultural attachment.

We’re not noticing that it’s actually valuable to take a closer look at this, because it really is one of the prime things Pro-Columbos say over and over again, that this is the reason they’re going to fight. By missing or ignoring that this is a community heritage day, by not offering a solution to that, the message that we Contro Colombos are unintentionally sending to the general public is:

“Italian-American heritage isn’t important enough to solve for, not even in a conflict that revolves around what many see as Italian-American’s heritage day.”

It’s unintentional, but I realize now that to anyone not bought into the idea of Columbus removal, it comes off as hypocritical from us Contro Colombos because the values that we’re carrying into this issue revolve around making sure the Indigenous community finally starts getting a bit of the respect and recognition it deserves.

I stand by those values, but I can also see that — obviously the Italian-American experience, past and present, are vastly different than Indigenous ones. For white-privileged members today, we’re incredibly safe compared to the old days, and from other — you know — from what other communities experience, but nonetheless as Contro Columbos, we are saying that we care about community recognition and that the ideas that we stand for are the ones that should lead the entire nation.

At the same time we’re also saying this messy Italian cultural tie to Columbus it’s not worth our time for consideration, review, or solving for.

How is that idea supposed to be the one that leads the entire nation, not just an idea that leads people who agree with us?

It’s unintentionally a little hypocritical and a little puritanical, not by design but because we’re missing something. It’s a place where we’re faltering at showing our ideas and solutions are meant to lead and work for everyone, not just those who already agree with us.

If we were listening and reviewing what Pro-Columbus are saying about having cultural attachment, the communication we might present might look a little bit more like:

“Hey, I know this sucks. It’s not your fault, it’s not your ancestors. It’s just we gotta reckon with this history. We have a problem here that cultural symbols have got to be democratic and work for everybody, and this isn’t gonna work anymore. But what can we do to make sure that we have a great Italian-American heritage day?”

Totally different conversation, totally different message, right?

I think Contro Columbos, especially those of us outside the Indigenous community and especially those of us inside the Italian one, we can review and fine-tune how we’re doing things because missing stuff like this makes cultural change harder, and it accidentally adds gasoline to the culture war, which is not something we’re looking to do, but it is something we wind up doing.

I think and I hope Pro-Columbos can see that this oversight is understandable. Certainly none of us can expect the Indigenous movement to have something like this on their radar. They are going through so much hardship, they’ve been through so much hardship. What they’re doing is sticking up for themselves, and they should.

The other thing that kind of strikes me when I think about the two communities, Italian and Indigenous, is that they haven’t really ever met, en masse, before or I think even had the ability to do so prior to the last several years of the internet allowing us to communicate directly with each other.

So for Pro-Columbos, I can understand that it seems like Indigenous People’s Day kind of came out of nowhere and now, all of a sudden, there’s all this fighting and protest and the way we talk to each other over the internet is often so raw. And all that just puts you on defense.

The one thing that I know that’s changed for me is I can hear and recognize that there is a piece of this for many Pro-Columbo Italians that is primarily about the loss of a cultural symbol, a big day of celebration, that we have emotional attachment there, we have cultural attachment there.

I’m, of course, for Indigenous People’s Day, but what I’d love to see start to come in from Contro Colombos is that we start looking for an Italian heritage day solution as well, so that we make sure our solutions are as comprehensive as possible.

Contro-Colombo Italians, this should be our ballpark. Ideally it gets awareness from others who are involved in the removal of Columbus and the placement of Indigenous People’s Day. Because, the thing is, without at least trying to solve for that, we’re allowing a little bit of hypocrisy, a little bit of puritanism and a little bit of undemocratic-ness to exist and potentially grow inside our solutions. And I know that’s not what we want.

For Pro-colombos, especially those of you who are like: “Nah, it’s Columbus or bust.” I think you may appreciate some of the points in the next video because it’s a conversation about Columbus that has nothing to do with Indigenous People’s Day.

That video comes out tomorrow. I hope you give it a listen. Thanks, everyone

-end transcript

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The original video may be viewed and shared at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7-tNeVWldk&t=2s

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Rebecca Ginamarie (she/her)
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