Last night at the presidential debate No. 2 Hillary started off by buying into our “America Great Again” Trumpism by going off on how great America supposedly already is (the beginning of an especially boring performance by our projected next President). Surely, she was countering Trump’s primary theme that America has descended into a septic tank, especially since the election of that Kenyan-born commie. I have already had my say on this “great/no, was great” bullshit, but today is Columbus Day, supposedly America’s birthday. It’s a day I remember fondly from my youth because it is a major Italian-American holiday and I loved the big I-A picnics in the park, playing baseball, eating all that great I-A food, and listening to the old immigrants reminisce and banter in Italian. It was major Goombah time, and I missed it when I grew up and left town.
I still miss it—even though I have a different perspective on Columbus Day, a perspective that sees it for what it really was, the beginning of the murder, raping and pillaging, the greedy pursuit of the gold, of indigenous peoples of the “new world, the beginning of slavery and native American genocide, that are the signature events of America’s “greatness” that are yet much in evidence if one scrapes off the rhetorical bullshit of American politics. Christoforo (an apt name) Colon (an apt name?) was an Italian adventurer front and center of these atrocities who has undeservedly made it into the pantheon of Italian American’s along with La Guardia, Sinatra and DiMaggio. (To be fair, if you subscribe to the case that it was Vikings who first discovered America, be advised that those murderous-thieving bastards probably would have made even shorter work of genocide than the less efficient murderous-thieving Spanish bastards—but the food would have sucked.).
So I don’t blame my I-A ancestors for having their misplaced pride and holiday. They have done much more to give America its thin veneer of “greatness” than Columbus. Most of them were running from murderous-thieving bastards in the old country and just wanted to make pizza, wine and The Godfather. So let’s drop Columbus and keep the picnic. I can’t be there, but I’ma gonna makah me somah melanzane alla Parmigiana and make America “great”—at least for dinner.