A great victory over intolerance in Philadelphia

If I look out of the window of my Philadelphia office, I can just make out the head of the Christopher Columbus a few blocks away. For the past two and a half years, I haven’t done so since the statue of the iconic Italian has been entombed in a plywood coffin, spitefully erected by Mayor Jim Kenney, Philadelphia’s most valiant slayer of triggering public art.

He removed Frank Rizzo’s statue from its central place of honor at the Municipal Services Building, presided over the erasure of his mural at the Italian Market and kidnapped poor Kate Smith from outside of the Wells Fargo Center, moving her to the safe house.

But his “Braveheart’ moment, that point when he made his assault on the oppressors — anyone who didn’t agree with the woke agenda of Gen XYZ — was when he tried to pull down the statue of Columbus. It was both illegal and nonsensical, given that the artwork had presided peacefully over Marconi Plaza for more than four decades, and it was a sign that no group was safe from the Orwellian urge to purge that originated with the tolerant censors of the left.

In October, some enterprising residents decided to paint what I call Kenney’s Coffin in the colors of the Italian flag. The mayor pretended that the plywood was to protect the statue and prevent violence. The irony is that the only real violence was coming from the rioters who were, in other cities, tearing down memorials, ripping names off buildings and painting over images that made them realize the shallow nature of their own accomplishments.

We only hide those things that make us feel inferior, and the accomplishments of Columbus and the old white men who succeeded him were historically significant. Hiding them is a backhanded compliment to their power.

But still, it grated on my nerves every time I walked by the box and understood what it signified.

The fact that my city, the place where I have lived and loved and worked and mourned and celebrated for over six decades had made an executive decision that was toxic. My heritage needed to be carted up in cheap plywood and blocked from tender eyes, eyes that were being fed false narratives of genocide and cruelty.

The mayor of that city had bowed to pressure and fed the intolerant beast.

One official, a councilwoman who is very concerned with tolerating the sort of cultures she considers valuable and is now running for mayor herself, used her position of authority and wrote a letter on official stationery demanding that the statue be removed.

Others, less vocal but more cowardly, hung back in silence as a whole community of Philadelphians was maligned. A few served their constituents and presented a defense for those who had no voice. But there were few of them. Most of us who were angry used our voices as we refused to back down. And one man used his magisterial knowledge of the law, as well as his experience as boxing commissioner — the man knows what it means to fight — and won victory after victory in courtrooms.

And when the final bell rang and the match was called, it was the city and its mayor writhing on the ground in a knockout and the decent folk of Philly, led by attorney George Bocchetto, who were able to parade around the ring with the championship belt.

There was absolutely no reason that a group of people needed to find a lawyer to defend their heritage against the bigoted onslaught of the mayor and his lackeys. There was no reason for this mayor of a city plagued with homicides and homelessness to focus his laser-like attention on a simple statue. There was no reason for him to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars and hours in manpower to wage a quixotic legal crusade against the Italian American community. There was no reason in any of it.

This was pure insanity.