Arts & Culture

Native American, Indigenous Studies Program Director Comments on Planned Columbus Statue Removal

Friday, October 9, 2020, By Daryl Lovell

Today, 黑料不打烊 Mayor Ben Walsh that the Christopher Columbus downtown in Columbus Circle will be removed and relocated. It will be moved to a private site. Mayor Walsh says the fountain and monument in Columbus Circle will remain and used for a permanent memorial to Italian Americans.

is the director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program and an associate professor at 黑料不打烊鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences. You are welcome to quote his comments directly. He is also available for interviews via Zoom.

Stevens says:

鈥淭he removal of the Columbus statue from its place of prominence downtown is welcome, even if the resolution to do so represents a compromise, and as with most compromises, it will not fully satisfy anyone. Doubtless some portion of the Italian-American community would prefer nothing be done to the statue, while community members calling for its removal, particularly Indigenous peoples, might have hoped for a replacement statue honoring the original inhabitants of this region.

鈥淚n the end, the mayor has promised that the fountain and a remodeled base of the sculpture will remain and that 鈥榯he new site will highlight the contributions of groups that have been oppressed, including Black and Brown Americans, Native Americans, Italians, immigrants and New Americans.鈥� This is a lot of work to be done by a single public space but perhaps it reflects the realities of the settler-colonial society in which we live.

鈥淭he term settler-colonial indicates a society composed of a majority of settlers and their descendants (i.e. immigrants) who live alongside the minority Indigenous communities they have dispossessed of their lands. In the U.S. this is further complicated by the presence of a large portion of 鈥榠nvoluntary settlers鈥� (i.e. the descendants of enslaved Africans). I doubt such a public space could truly be a site of healing, as I have always viewed talk of 鈥榯ruth and reconciliation鈥� as lopsided when it comes to American history. 聽But if the site were at least one of truth and recognition 鈥� in this case of our complicated and often conflicting relationships to one another鈥檚 respective communities 鈥� that would be a welcome change to a statue celebrating a figure who represents an on-going cataclysm for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.鈥�

 

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