Well-Earned Boos

Chazz Palminteri and Joe Piscopo were among the late cancellations to Mayor de Blasio’s Italian-American heritage reception Thursday night, joining a boycott by dozens of community leaders. De Blasio himself had already been snubbed by organizers of this Sunday’s Bronx Columbus Day Parade. And he’ll surely face waves of booing when he marches in Monday’s parade up Fifth Avenue. All of it richly earned. The mayor started self-inflicting these wounds by jumping on the statue-removal bandwagon after the violence in Charlottesville. Since New York has an inconvenient shortage of Confederate memorials, the conversation quickly turned to other monuments that might offend . . . someone.

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito suggested axing statues of Christopher Columbus — a villain to modern lefties because, well, imperialism. (And never mind her own effort to turn a terrorist into the hero of this year’s Puerto Rican Day Parade.)

So the mayor duly put the great explorer on the list of public monuments to be reviewed as possibly “oppressive and inconsistent with the values of New York City.”

OK, Columbus didn’t respect human rights. But the concept wouldn’t be invented for centuries, and was plainly unknown in the New World: The Aztec religion, after all, involved gruesome human sacrifice.

What he did do was advance human knowledge with his achievements, marking a huge step toward the modern world. And Christopher Columbus and his monument at 59th Street symbolize Italian-American pride, accomplishment and love of our diverse city.

Yet now the NYPD is obliged to post a 24/7 security detail in Columbus Circle, to prevent fresh vandalism of the statue.

Tony Signorile, head of the Bronx parade, likened de Blasio’s washing his hands of the controversy (by appointing a monuments review committee) to Pontius Pilate.

Just admit the obvious, Mr. Mayor: There’s no “oppression” in any Columbus statue, just the pride of a people who once felt marginalized in New York.