Walz 'Erased Our Culture,' Says Italian-American Guy Who Thinks Pavarotti Wrote 'Nessun Dorma'
As an Italian-American, I am personally insulted.
I had absolutely no idea that anyone had resurrected the Italian-American Civil Rights League (IACRL).
In case you’re not familiar, it’s an organization that, swear to God, in 1970, was founded by Joseph Colombo Sr., the boss of the Colombo crime family, after his kid was arrested for melting down coins. Its supposed mission was to defend Italian-Americans against insulting and defamatory stereotypes — like, for instance, that we are all in the mob or that we’re ignorant (the whole “they’re all anarchists!” thing had died out a few decades earlier). Its actual purpose was to deny the existence of the mob and get people to stop talking about the mob so that Joseph Colombo Sr. and others could do more mob crimes. Their most notable accomplishment was getting the Justice Department to stop using the words “mafia” and “cosa nostra” and getting those words taken out of The Godfather, which surely prevented everyone from knowing it was about the mafia.
They were also in cahoots with the Jewish Defense League, a violent Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group.
For some reason, it’s made a comeback, and the only reason I know this is because some guy who claims to be on its board is out here losing his shit because Tim Walz didn’t stop activists from tearing down a statue of Christopher Columbus.
Mike Crispi, who is best known as the guy on whose Rumble show George Santos compared himself to Rosa Parks, clearly thinks he’s found a real winner of an issue with which to attack America’s Dad, Tim Walz.
“Tim Walz is an enemy of the Italian American Community,” Mike Crispi wrote, quite disingenuously, on social media. “He has a long history of being in favor of erasing our culture. He strongly has supported the removal of Christopher Columbus statues. We will call it for what it is: racism.”
No. That is definitely not what that is. First of all, Italian-Americans are not a race. Second, no one is mad at Christopher Columbus for being Italian (he wasn’t, he was Genoese, no one was Italian back then, and he sailed under the Spanish flag), they are mad at him for the whole “genocidal maniac” thing. Big, big difference.
Personally, I think it’s rude to assume that the rest of us want to be associated with someone so famous for enslaving and massacring people, someone who was such a genocidal maniac, the Spanish queen locked him up (temporarily, before restoring his wealth and funding his next voyage). That’s at least as embarrassing as people thinking we’re all connected, without any of the interpersonal convenience of people assuming there’s a chance you could have them taken care of if you wanted. (I KID.)
Attached to the post, he quoted himself in a sad little press release:
Italian American Civil Rights League Board Member Mike Crispi today denounced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for allowing roving mobs of left-wing criminals to destroy the State statue of Christopher Columbus.
"Tim Walz did nothing to stop radical vandals from targeting the most prominent symbol of Italian-American culture in a flagrant hate crime," Crispi said. "He knew they were coming and he did nothing to protect the statue." […]
Crispi went on to say private emails among Walz staff revealed the reason why.
In order to placate indigenous activists and other anti-Italian-American sympathizers, Walz and his cronies colluded to keep the statue down," Crispi said. "They hate the Western tradition that made America great and they will do anything to undermine it and destroy our country from within."
There is a whole lot that is gross about calling indigenous activists or anyone else who opposes celebrating Columbus “anti-Italian-American.” Especially since, again, many Italian-Americans feel the same way.
Crispi, meanwhile, is the absolute last person who should ever accuse anyone of disrespecting Italian culture. I only had to scroll a little bit down the IACRL Twitter feed to see a tweet in which he wrote “Trump concluding the convention with classic Italian music from Pavarotti was PERFECT! IACRL approved!” and shared a video of the MAGA tenor singing Nessun Dorma.
This can mean only one of two things — he thinks that guy is Luciano Pavarotti, who has been rather dead since 2007, or he thinks that Nessun Dorma, a very famous aria from Puccini’s Turandot, is a Pavarotti original.
Now that’s disrespectful to Italian culture.
I will note, however, that it is a fairly poetic choice, given that it’s a song sung by a man who is waiting to find out if a woman will kill him.
Twit on Twitter wrote: "I'll continue to celebrate Columbus Day, thank you." Response from sane person: "How do you "celebrate" Columbus Day? Get lost in a grocery store looking for the spice aisle?"
[They hate the Western tradition that made America great]
That "Western tradition" labelled Italian immigrants as "non-white" and treated them like shit for decades.