Christopher Columbus is under attack.
Although he died in 1506 — after discovering America, if you can believe every reliable textbook ever written — Columbus is now reviled, at least by liberal snowflakes who think the explorer was a wretched racist.
On Wednesday, a plaster, bronze-covered statue was found beheaded in Columbus Park in central Yonkers, reports NBC-4 in New York.
Lifelong resident Pat Gamberdella said he called police when he noticed the head of the statue torn off.
“It’s very upsetting that American values have sunken to the level they are today,” Gamberdella said. “It’s unfortunate because I did go up there and I did see it all smashed.”
The head to the bronze-colored statue was found discarded next to a plastic bag in Columbus Memorial Park, a mile north of the Bronx.
Yonkers police are investigating the incident and they say it could have been the work of juveniles overnight. They also say there is a possibility it could be fallout from the deadly protests and counter-protests over a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month.
Those protests have led to calls for more public tributes to be removed, including a push in New York City to remove the Columbus Circle statue in light of the figure’s oppression of Native Americans.
“We can’t just desecrate a monument to them just because you don’t like what they did,” Gamberdella said.
The vandalism comes after a task force set up by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio began reviewing the proposed removal of a statue of Christopher Columbus as a possible “symbol of hate.”
The famed statue has stood in Columbus Circle in Manhattan for more than 100 years. On Friday, protesters gathered in the circle near Central Park, some carrying signs that read: “Columbus didn’t discover America he invaded it.” Another sign called the statue “A tribute to racism and genocide.”
De Blasio, a Democrat running for re-election in November, set up the review of “symbols of hate” after a violent protest between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Virginia this month.”We have to look at everything here,” de Blasio said during Wednesday night’s Democratic mayoral debate, CBS reported.
A group of Italian Americans donated the 76-foot statue to the city in 1892.
