President Bill de Blasio said at a press conference Friday that New York City’s decision to keep the Christopher Columbus statue near Central Park should not be reconsidered.
“The commission has done a really careful, comprehensive study. It’s really good, people who care about understanding all history and caring about social justice, and put forward a vision of how to handle it. I think we should just stick to what happened by this commission,” he said.
Asked whether residents are worried about having problems with their own hands, de Blasio said, “The important point is that we need to progress on many fronts as a city” and set priorities for the city: keeping people safe, people support their livelihoods and address police reform.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo defended the statue yesterday and It represents “Italian-American contribution in New York.”
What is this about: In January 2018, the Mayor’s Office, City Art, Monuments and Pointers Advisory Commission recommended that the city remain in place and take additional measures to encourage public dialogue about the polarized figure.
“The Commission believes that the City should facilitate more public dialogue with a series of actions and then reassess the situation,” the Commission said in a report to the city, when the Commission encourages polarization to discuss a monument under review. Said.
These additional actions included the commissioning of new monuments for “excluded groups of people” in response to the heritage and dates represented by Christopher Columbus and the annual recognition of the Indigenous Peoples Day.
Confederation sculptures are falling across the country, Columbus is also dismantling. Columbus has been a controversial figure for his long-standing treatment of Indigenous communities and his role in violent colonization at all costs.
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