Real Italians don’t love Columbus

Manhattan: There is more than one opinion about Columbus statues among Italian-Americans, yet your reporters keep repeating the same one. Italy has no monuments to Columbus; will de Blasio monuments panel member John Calvelli claim that Italy hates Italians? I don’t appreciate the attempt to justify harm done to generations of indigenous peoples by citing the 11 Italians lynched by the KKK, since my great-grandfather in Tampa was meant to be No. 12. The solidarity of his Afro-Cuban, Spanish and Sicilian (and perhaps some Seminole) neighbors saved our family.

Congress has been petitioned by scores of experts in Italian culture, requesting to be distanced from the bloody legacy these statues really represent. The Italians who paid for the monument at 59th St. were perhaps too humble to demand a monument to themselves as immigrant workers building this metropolis (on stolen land) — thus they settled for Columbus. We, their modern descendants, should figure out that he is not a positive symbol of our values. Sara Catalinotto

Fair warning

Rego Park: Now, after a mayoral panel of experts has decided that the statue of Columbus can stay, I suggest placing the following notice near Columbus Circle (I hope it has not been renamed yet!): “Attention all concerned pedestrians! You are approaching Columbus Circle! Please do not look up!” Victor Maltsev

Who’d be most racist?

Staten Island: President Trump stated, “I’m the least racist person you’ll ever know.” But he didn’t condemn white supremacists in Charlottesville. He attacks black athletes who take a knee in support of Black Lives Matter. He wants to build a wall to keep out Mexicans, whom he calls rapists and drug dealers. He wants people from Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador to be deported after they were allowed to come here following catastrophes in their countries. He wants to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, including DACA children. He banned Arabs from seven countries from immigrating here. But he’s not a racist? Al Posecznick

Big surprise

Madison, Tenn.: Now, we know Trump’s really a racist. Charlottesville, amazingly, didn’t convince people, and the NFL comments equally were forgotten. Americans have the shortest attention span on the planet. We are in big trouble. Our electorate and politicians have Alzheimer’s disease. Emmett Jones

Tasteless headlines

Greenwood Lake, N.Y.: It appears the Daily News has entered the “who can be the most cheap and tasteless” contest with the President and have won hands down with Friday’s front page (“S**t for brains”). Disagreeing and making fun of the President have been practiced for the most part since Nixon, and I have no problem with that. I assume most of your staff are college graduates, and I expected better than that.

Joseph Fioramonti Sr.

No News is good News

Manhattan: After 60 years of reading the Daily News, I have bought my last copy. Shame on you for Friday’s front page and headline. This native New Yorker is finished with your hateful, anti-Trump rhetoric, and I hope your paper tanks.

Michael Chorostil

Life imitates art

Manhattan: Donald Trump invoked Norway as a country sufficiently desirable as a source for new Americans. Funny about that: Throughout the prior 14 months, since Election Night of November 2016, many current Americans have been wearing an expression on their faces reminiscent of the foreground figure of Norway’s most famous painting, “The Scream,” by Edvard Munch. The look depicted there of horror, anguish and sheer disbelief is the most fitting response to the nightmare of Trump’s presidency.

Judy Richheimer

What America stands for

San Francisco: Re: “President Trump reportedly blasts protections for immigrants from ‘s--thole countries’ ” (Jan. 11): What is truly offensive about President Trump’s remark isn’t the obscenity itself, but the racism underlying it. America has always welcomed people from “s--thole countries,” and even a “very stable genius” can recognize that they have been the secret to American greatness. They are the impoverished “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” and “the wretched refuse of your teeming shore” referred to in Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus,” to whom the Statue of Liberty beckons, saying: “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” My grandparents and great-grandparents were among those who fled such conditions for the promise of freedom offered by America, and who succeeded as a result. Trump’s vile slur, denying the potential of such people out of hand, is the very antithesis of all that America represents.

Stephen A. Silver

Mark it down

Manhattan: To Voicer Frances Stackpole: Perhaps you have been smoking that pipe a bit too long and have been overcome by the smoke. Your comment that “most of the people in this country wanted him for President” is about the most ignorant of many I have read. While Trump won the Electoral College (and thus became President), he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million. That hardly adds up to “most of the people”! What the POTUS is accused of doing, he actually does. My dear, you are an example of the lack of education in this country. It is easy to research the election results, and I suggest you do just that before making fake statements. Reneé Fineberg

That other German leader

Manhattan: Trump’s recent expletive denoting Caribbean and Central American countries is in line with his purpose, being the second coming of Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Germany (1871-90). Trump’s tactics include a constant stream of disparaging, dehumanizing remarks. It worked with Hillary Clinton, and so now he continues, seeping sewage on Mexicans, Central Americans, South Americans and Haitians. This is a Bismarckian tactic: First, he expelled the Jesuits, then outlawed the Socialists, then annexed Alsace-Lorraine as a wall to protect Germany from France and then ethnically cleansed Germany by forcible expulsion, of inferiors (Poles and Jews) who had lived there for generations. Trump’s constant dripping is normalized, and eventually — it will take years — he gets what he wants. It took Trump years to get the old West Side train yards — but he got them. Trump may have a psychiatric diagnosis, but it doesn’t preclude him from purposeful, painful acts. We all need to read our European history and learn about Bismarck. He made Germany great again. Do we want Trump to do for us what Bismarck did for Germany?

Sharon R. Kahn

What a guy

Manhattan: Way to go, Donald! Always a class act! Carl L. Maury

Spewing forth

Carmel, N.Y.: The real s--thole is the mouth of “tRump.”

Robert Robinson

It’s over

Deer Park, L.I.: To Voicer Greg Cunningham: Mark my words. You have wrong facts. Donald Trump did not go bankrupt four or five times. Those Atlantic City BABETO MATTHEWS/AP casinos were sold long before they were closed/bankrupt. Check it. Remember that stimulus plan that the former POTUS sold the American people. It did not stimulate a thing. Now with Trump as President, the housing market is up and the stock market is thriving. Major companies are giving bonuses to their blue-collar employees. Sorry, Greg, but Hillary lost the election.

Larry Nekola

Now they speak out

Freeport, L.I.: Be careful, Seal, or anyone else who dares to call Hollywood exactly what they are — a bunch of hypocrites (“Seal under investigation after neighbor claims he forcefully kissed, groped her,” Jan. 16)! They will find someone to come out with a claim of victimization. If the Harvey Weinstein story never broke, all those “victims” dressed in black would have been scrambling to make sure they had their pictures taken with him. This list of “victims” includes many very successful, powerful actresses who could have spoken up at any time over all these years and who now have daughters but still chose to keep quiet! Why? The possibility of the next picture was just too much to give up? It’s hypocrisy at the highest level. It’s so easy to jump onto any bandwagon, as we have so clearly seen. The power is in the one who speaks out against any type of abuse, immediately, for the safety of themselves and others regardless of their own consequences.

Kathy Lamb