Where’s Columbus? Chicago’s Italians Mocked as Clowns & Chumbolones
By John Kass
May 7, 2025
I must admit that I’m prejudiced in favor of the Italian people of Chicago, because I married one almost 40 years ago now.
My Lovely Sicilian is upset and with good reason.
“They’re treating us like fools, like chumbolones,” she said the other day. “Where’s the Christopher Columbus statue?”
Where?
It’s nowhere.
It’s in the shadows, now hidden away by Mayor Brandon Johnson in a thoroughly embarrassing deal agreed to by some Italian groups that make a complete mockery of the Italian people on the Columbus issue.
But it gives Johnson and the other Chicago leftists room and was thought to buy silence from the Italians.
I don’t think that’s working.
And now it turns out that Johnson has taken advantage of the Italians by using the screw up by the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans as a cheap excuse to cancel Columbus permanently and remove all Columbus statues from the city’s parks. This is what the the neo-Marxists have wanted for years. They loathe Christopher Columbus. And the Italian Americans are being treated as fools.
My advice? Don’t treat the proud Italians as if they’re idiots or chumbolones with ridiculous Bozo shoes. They don’t like it. And they won’t shut up.
The news this week is that the controversial Columbus statue, removed from the Chicago Parks to appease the Democrat Party and the rest of the anti-American hard left, will return to Taylor Street. At least that’s how gullible Chicago media is framing the issue.
Not so says Lou Rago, former president of the JCCIA–Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans.
This narrative, Rago says, is a self-serving lie.
“JCCIA President Ron Onesti and select board members are peddling the narrative that the statue is being returned to its rightful and historic place in public view in the Taylor Street neighborhood,” said Lou Rago of the Italian American Human Relations Foundation.
“The truth is: Under a long-rejected deal proposed initially by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the statue will be hidden away indoors—out of public sight—as part of an undefined ‘museum-style’ exhibit.” This is not a return; it is a burial,” Rago said.
“The level of betrayal is staggering,” said Carlo Vaniglia. “This is cultural treason. The JCCIA leadership has traded a symbol of our heritage and pride for political favor and personal convenience.
“They’ve sold out our community.”
I’ve spent decades covering Chicago politics, watching the squabbling of so-called “leaders,” but here I must agree with Rago and Vaniglia. It is as if it were planned, an inside job. The one question the Italians of Chicago might ask themselves is Cui Bono? Who stands to benefit?
I can’t say. I’m not a political player putting together exhibits and a museum that might be in need of a favor from the mayor. I’m just a guy, married to a Sicilian girl who wants to walk through the Chicago parks and see the Columbus statues where they belong, in public, so the public can see them, as in the old days. And she can’t. Columbus is hidden away, part of the censorship of the left that hates Columbus.
It is cultural treason. It is betrayal that reaches back across time. It also touches on accommodation of power and the kind of inter-ethnic infighting that plagues many ethnic communities.
If this were just a squabble among Italians it would be bad enough. You could shrug and let it go. Yet if you dig a bit deeper, you’ll see a rot afflicting America herself, her foundational origin story hijacked by the hard left that aims to destroy this nation.
But to get to the nut meat, first we must crack some nuts, so let’s get to cracking.
The Real Story
That statues were once part of Chicago’s parks, symbolic of an America that finally recognized the racism and hate that had been directed at Italian immigrants, and there were other statues commemorating Columbus in cities all across America.
The Columbus statues and the national holiday honoring the great explorer who found the New World were a response to terrible violence directed at Italians—including a series of lynchings.
In New Orleans for example, where my father-in-law later lived and became an orphan, an angry mob lynched 11 Sicilians in a crime that horrified the nation. Apparently, the only ones not horrified were the bigots and editors of the New York Times who applauded the mob attacking and murdering Italians without trial.
Later, as a result of this horror, statues of Columbus were erected in the hopes of appeasement, to make amends. And there were Columbus Day parades.
Discrimination against Italians was common. Italians were not even considered to be whites. Similar discrimination visited Greeks in Chicago and other Southern Europeans. Greeks it is said, did not become “white” until America’s princess Jackie Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. I was there. I saw it. I grew up with it. How many times did I hear “greaseball” and “dago” and ‘wop.” And all the jokes about the Outfit and Capone by frightened boys who would wet their pants if confronted a real wiseguy.
Finally, America washed her hands of it all. But the Marxists were there to take advantage. Their teeth had been filed razor sharp at the universities for years.
The hard political left that is the base of the Democrat Party, the neo-Marxist, neo-Jacobin left whipped themselves into a frenzy about Columbus. And President Donald Trump was in office when Minneapolis police killed violent drug dealer thug George Floyd. And Black Lives Matter, along with corrupt legacy journalism, transformed the thug Floyd into some kind of plaster saint so all the Angry White Female Leftists could genuflect.
The left whipped their political troops to greater frenzy to hurt Trump. The Black Lives Matter riots tore the country apart and cities were destroyed as the legacy media lied as to the cause. The left was thrilled. But downtown Chicago has never recovered. And before the goofus that is Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s mayor during those Black Lives Matter riots was Lori Lightfoot. aka Mayor Phallus Maximus. She removed the statue to appease her lefty allies.
But though Columbus was relegated to the socialist gulag of problematic public art, other hateful images—including those directed at Jews by the pro-Palestinian left—are allowed in public Chicago.
A controversial art exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center depicting Uncle Sam and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as murderers was allowed, even defended at City Hall. But the Italians and Columbus aren’t allowed.
If you ask, you’re told by official Chicago and the media: Forget about it.
I suppose you want consistency? But the left laughs at those of us who seek consistency. To the left Columbus is not the brave explorer who opened the New World. To them he is a European colonizer who must be wiped from history. Among his sins. He was a Roman Catholic. He believed in God. And he was white, though such racial designations weren’t commonly understood.
Critical race theory mushroomed in feeding the hatred of Columbus. And had their own foundation myth, the 1619 Project of the New York Times, based on faulty, deranged Marxist dreams. In 2020, there were three Christopher Columbus statues in Chicago that were removed: In Grant Park, Arrigo Park (Little Italy), and South Chicago’s Drake Fountain.
The Italian American people have done nothing to be treated like chumbolones, like clowns. And they should not be treated as such by their own representatives, the kind that elbow their way to the front for the photograph in the ethnic newspapers.
There is no excuse for it.
Mayor Johnson is a lost cause, an idiot, a failure. You might as well write him off along with his political boss, Boss Toni Preckwinkle. They will remain in power protected by the Chicago Teachers Union and the great city will continue to fall of its own sodden corrupt weight. There is no saving Chicago now.
And please remember that Communism, the hard left, the neo-Jacobins, the neo-Marxists, are not something new.
Is Satan new?
And as Whittaker Chambers reminds us in Witness:
“It is, in fact, man’s second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: “Ye shall be as gods.”
“It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man’s relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.
“It is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man’s liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man’s destiny and reorganizing man’s life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of the Creation, not because God made man in his image, but because man’s mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals. Copernicus and his successors displaced man as the central fact of the universe by proving that the earth was not the central star of the universe.”
Communists become their own gods. And then they prepare the Killing Fields. This is the violent road they’ve been marching on for years and years. If you can’t see where they’re marching, you can feel it.
So, whenever you hope to understand them, think of the serpent promising ultimate power:
Ye shall be as gods.
-30-
About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.
Merchandise Now Available: If you’re looking for a gift for that hard-to-buy for special someone who has everything, just click on the link to the johnkassnews.com store.
Where else would you find a No Chumbolone™ cap or a Chicago Way™ coffee cup?
Because I know this about you: You’re not a Chumbolone.
Comments 37
Good morning. John they are changing History and sad to see the young people do not seem to care and adults too. They are changing America to fit their purpose. So sad what has happened to our Country. I agree with your lovely wife.
Citing Chamber’s poetic treatise, Witness to support your column is perfect. Chamber’s worldview is “man without mysticism is a monster”
I agree. It’s the perfect description of the Marxist/Progressive mind. Though I would have left off the last statement concerning Copernicus, since the otherwise damning prose could be ignored as whacky ravings by those that still believe the Earth is flat.
As long as the voters keep electing these idiots, nothing will change. The ethic groups will sell each other out for a few crumbs. The only power that the citizens have is to vote and most cannot be bothered. Not voting is a vote as well – a vote for the status quo where things only get worse instead of better. The faithless will win because there are no longer enough of those with faith that stand up for their beliefs – it is too much trouble. The faithless have been bought off with their own money and think that they are getting something for nothing. The leftists are all about taking from the haves and buying the have nots off. As it has been said, the majority of the voters get the government they deserve, and the non-voters get the government that they deserve.
Can’t say much more than … damn (smh)
Isn’t it amazing, and I will say it, Christofer Columbus, for better or for worse, I think for the better, was on the vanguard of bringing Westen Civilization to the New World. Look at the genesis of his visit, the greatest civilization the world has ever known with the whole world, except of course Rosie O’Donnell, clamoring to live here. I do not see illegal or legal aliens clamoring to live in Cuba, China, Russia, or any other socialists’ paradises. Chris you are my hero. John, you forgot that most delightful slur, “guinea.”
This column, deep in history and insight, raises a question that few except Kass dare touch: Which bigotries are still tools used in places ruled by Democrats, the party whose only remaining card is identity politics? It seems strange that Chicago’s recent administrations are able to scoff at a smaller ethnic minority by hiding away statues of its admired explorer from the 15th century.
Well, these times in Chicago are strange . . . and not improving. George Floyd is a hero and Christopher Columbus is a villain. And Italians and Greeks are — what, just sufficiently European-looking to be disrespected?
It ain’t the good ole days. Too many chumbalones. Leave the gun, take the cannoli!
Great article John, but let’s remember the Martyr George Floyd died of a drug overdose
Sadly Da Man on 5 nor his son to a certain extent are no longer around. Can’t tell the coppers to crack a few heads to restore law and order. Who can forget da mare ranting at the Dem convention? Floyd riots might have made a whimper for that thug with Daley around. The average black in Chicago like the rest of us wants to live in peace and safety. Have their kids go to decent schools, not indoctrination factories. When you cannot read or write what is left? . Hanging on a corner slinging dope so you can mentally escape the hellhole where you live. Glad I left.
Exactly right. Can’t read or write, can’t get a job, get married, start family.
So you join a gang
Thanks, John, for revealing information that I have not heard previously like the origins of the Columbus Day celebration was the response to the New Orleans mob lynching killings of eleven Sicilians.
This article caused me to visit that chapter of American history and found that lynchings, contrary to popular belief was not exclusive to blacks. According to the Tuskegee Institute, 27% of the 4743 reported lynching victims from 1882 to 1968 were white.
Again, since history is not taught, we need to repeat history again.
Mob rules based on beliefs of falsehoods and not the truth.
I feel so much better now that i know whites were also wrongfully hung. DEI strikes again!
Agreed that absent the point that Floyd actually died in Minneapolis police custody rather than at their hands, an excellent column John. Chauvin is a metaphor himself.
I dunno, it seems like a simple fix. A few of the right individuals found in a couple of trunks of cars would solve this issue.
Again you hit the nail on the head! Columbus is just one in a line of great people whose image has been vilified by the far left. George Washington and just about every president up to the true racist, Woodrow Wilson, have been the target of neo-socialist-democrat of today’s America. Thank you for bringing this to light and keep fighting the good fight.
Yianni,
Well, as we often have said, elections have consequences, and what has happened of late in Chicago and Illinois is a tragedy of mega proportions. As the city descends into chaos with murders, robberies, car jackings – stores close, and those residents that can – flee. The leftist/socialist (no longer dem) party of Chicago and Illinois are determined to maintain the stranglehold they have over all of us, no matter the election. Until the GOP can muster up the courage to run viable candidates with which to defeat these bums, then we are to be religated to the annals of history as a failed experiment of “progressive” agendas. I’m praying…but I doubt we’ll see anything change in my lifetime, as I’m running out of time at 78! Paul Vallas was our last hope. Something cataclismic must take place here to trigger any meaningful change of direction.
Well bring back (Find one) Bernie Epton! That’s what I wrote to the Chairman of the Illinois GOP just before the election between Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas and offered to cut a check for $1000 if he comes up with one. Of course, I didn’t hear from him! it’s no surprise. They call you by great names like grass roots leader and stuff like that to only get your checks and the boys who opens the envelopes are supposed to just find the check inside and throw the rest in a waste bin. And that’s about it. It’s the same story with every ‘Charitable organization’. They hire writers and send you all goofy or pathetic stories and pictures and you are supposed to cut a check! You are not going to find a viable white republican to run for the Mayor in a dew upcoming generations.
“Ye Shall be as Gods” – and the secular Calvinist New Englander. Russell Means, the great Lakota Patriot, respected Christopher Columbus for correctly naming the 100 million Native inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, as “Indians” – meaning people who are with God.
At Pow Wows, you can see T-shirts that say “Fighting terrorism since 1492” – but the shirt does not insult Columbus. American Indians would never countenance the removal of Statues. They know well the consequences of re-writing history. So do Southerners like me, all too well. So who does our Mayor and the balance represent – themselves, no one else. My wife and I are on the cusp of getting the hell out of here
Great Column
And I almost forgot, Columbus sailed with Jews, many Jews – who crewed his ships. So Jews have been here, in this Hemisphere SINCE DAY ONE. So who else is wiped out by this pathetic gesture
(sorry) 🙂
John:
Great article on Columbus & our Leaders racial bias. Wonder if the statues of Martin Luther King were taken down what would be the reaction? Keep up the good fight!
I was born in Columbus Hospital. Proud of that. If they hadn’t torn it down over 20 years ago, would they have renamed it by now? Perhaps, The Bigger Thomas Center of Health and Perpetual Hate.
Italian Americans made up more than 10% of the American armed forces in World War II. They were also interred and spied up by J. Edgar Hoover. Italian Americans should rise up angrily. The American Commies have at least that coming to them.
Fine column. My wife, too, is 1/2 Sicilian. There’s been a bust of Columbus [purchased from the Knights of Columbus] in each of my classrooms for the last 33 years. I retire in June, any of my colleagues that wishes can have it and I have several requests – none of them Italian. It will continue to rest in a classroom.
There’s the solution; they took it down, put up another! Plaster it on billboards and posters, put them on private property. Charge and sue any vandals.
The same AWFLs that lead the charge to remove those statues are the same ones who are slowly purging American Indian Iconography from daily life [eg The Cleveland Indians or Washington Redskins]. Only real push back will stop them. Who’ll start?
Molte Grazie, John, for sifting through this story. Ron Onesti ought to be ashamed of himself for passing off this despicable “agreement” as a victory for the Italian American community. Lou Rago is spot on. This is awful. Lou’s father-in-law, the late Marco DeStefano, used to be the Columbus Day Parade’s Grand Marshall for decades. It was the pride of his life to march alongside Mayor Richard J. Daley year after year. He’s turning over in his grave! The celebration of Columbus Day in Chicago has a very long history of success within the civic community and not just by Italian-Americans. The Colombian Club and many other Italian civic organizations should rebuke Mr. Onesti’s victoty lap and take him to task for it. Betty Kass is right – we’re being played as chooches (I still prefer chooch to chumbolone, sorry). As far as the empty stump in Grant Park presented on August 3, 1933, with the Columbus statue atop it as part of Italian Day celebrations at the Century of Progress fair, I will protest loudly if they put up a statue of Enrico Fermi or any other designee as a replacement. So much for a second century of progress in this city. It must be the same statue of Christopher Columbus that is gathering dust in a warehouse – no exceptions!
100 percent Italian girl here. This is a betrayal. No other ethnic group has ever had to give in to such demands and if I’m wrong please give me an example.
About Satan: Didn’t God create Satan, and couldn’t He kill him if He wanted to? That would solve a lot!
Well said Mr. Kass 🙂
reminds me of the words of Stanislaw Jerzy Lec:
“When smashing monuments, save the pedestals – they always come in handy.”
Too bad about Ron Onesti. We grew up in the same neighborhood at Grand/Pulaski area. Yes, I know he lived in Little Italy earlier. I went to HS, worked with & grew up with quite a few people who either were members or connected to organized crime. Many came out of the C-Notes gang, the Outfit farm team. Crime is intertwined in this city. Judges, Lawyers, Unions, Corporate America, Politicians, Law enforcement & criminals. It’s a shame because we were raised to do good, work hard & keep your nose clean. Chicago looks like toast. My visit last year everyone looked depressed. No joy. Nobody wanted to have a friendly chat anymore. What a shame!
Agree, but the Italians never stood up and protested either. Facts matter. Where was an Italian on the dais at the City Club, University Club, Union League Club, Chicago Economic Club etc to protest with facts.
No, they just took it.
My Italian bride found a flyer from New York City that said Negroes would be paid $1 a day, Italians 50 cents.
Just for the record—Christopher Columbus had nothing to do with the slave trade in particular or slavery in general. He merely discovered the New World. Speaking only for myself, I believe that we as conservatives (apostles of truth) are not sufficiently strident in debunking the hateful and stupid swill offered by the Left. Thank goodness for folks like John Kass.
Agreed. In his day, Columbus was considered crazy even thinking he could reach India by sailing west. Everyone agreed that the earth was flat and he’d fall off eventually. I think of Columbus as his generation’s astronaut, willing to boldly go where no one had ever gone before. That’s heroic, not racist.
By contrast, St. George of Floyd was a drugged-out small-time criminal who would have died either way within five or so years of the date of his actual death. That’s not heroic; that’s stupid.
A good reminder that the Leftists still control the culture, and changing that will be a long hard slog.
I think Italian Americans have been more focused on business than politics. Many started small businesses, such as pizzerias, shoe repair, and concrete. But seriously, both my IA Grandfather and my father owned and operated small businesses, jewelry and watch repair, then a software company. Eventually, I started my own engineering business, but I’m half.
There was a college version of the Italian American Anti-Defamation League and they attempted to recruit me with a couple of mailers. I didn’t join and I really don’t know why, maybe too busy. Probably would have been a great way to meet girls. What I know now!
Great writing. I am tired of Italian American being taken advantage of in Chicago
Would be nice if the new pope could intervene.
The agreement in my opinion was political so Onesti could get the Taylor street gig.. He made a bad deal and many Italian American are mad for the sell out,. The attorney involved should be ashamed. I believe his name was Enrico Miroballi and he is a family attorney.
Excellent column, John. You put your finger on the apex defect of leftism in all its forms — i.e., Marxism, Socialism, “Social Justice,” “Human Rights,” “International Law,” etc.
Columbus is an American Hero. Anyone who says otherwise is self-serving at best, and anti-American at worst. One more important point. Columbus had a majority Spanish crew. The Queen of Spain financed this venture. This was an international effort led by Columbus. To memory-hole Columbus and his crew is to diminish the history that was a crucial step in our history. In the end, history will ignore Brandon Johnson and Lori Lightfoot and anyone else that does not embrace the spirit of E Pluribus Unum that real Americans always have, and always will, embrace.