Walz ‘erased our culture,’ says Italian-American man who thinks Pavarotti wrote ‘Nessun Dorma’

I had absolutely no idea that someone had revived the Italian-American Civil Rights League (IACRL).

In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s an organization that, I swear to God, was founded in 1970 by Joseph Colombo Sr., the boss of the Colombo crime family, after his son was arrested for melting coins. The supposed mission was to protect Italian Americans from offensive and defamatory stereotypes — like that we’re all mafia or that we’re ignorant (the whole “they’re all anarchists!” thing had died down a few decades earlier). The real goal was to deny the Mafia existed and stop people from talking about the Mafia so that Joseph Colombo Sr. and others could commit more Mafia crimes. Their most notable achievement was getting the Justice Department to stop using the words “mafia” and “cosa nostra” and ban those words from their system. The godfatherwhich probably meant that not everyone knew it was about the mafia.

They also collaborated with the Jewish Defense League, a violent hate group designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

For some reason it’s back and I only know it because some guy who claims to be on the board is freaking out because Tim Walz didn’t stop activists from taking down a statue of Christopher Columbus.

Mike Crispi, best known as the man on whose Rumble show George Santos compared himself to Rosa Parks, clearly thinks he’s found a real winner on an issue where he can attack America’s Dad, Tim Walz.

“Tim Walz is an enemy of the Italian-American community,” Mike Crispi wrote, rather disingenuously, on social media. “He has a long history of advocating the erasure of our culture. He has strongly supported the removal of statues of Christopher Columbus. We call it what it is: racism.”

No. It’s absolutely not. First of all, Italian-Americans are not a race. Second of all, nobody is mad at Christopher Columbus because he’s Italian (he wasn’t, he was Genoese, nobody was Italian then and he was flying the Spanish flag), they’re mad at him because of the whole “genocide maniac” thing. Big, big difference.

I’m Italian-American and I think Columbus Day is bullshit

Personally, I find it rude to assume that the rest of us want to be associated with someone who became so famous for enslaving and slaughtering people, someone who was such a genocidal maniac that the Spanish queen locked him up (temporarily, before he reclaimed his wealth and funded his next voyage). That’s at least as embarrassing as people who think we’re all interconnected, without the interpersonal comfort of people who assume there’s a chance you can take care of them if you want to. (I’M MAKING A KID.)

In the message he quoted himself in a sad press release:

Mike Crispi, a board member of the Italian American Civil Rights League, today criticized Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for allowing roving bands of left-wing thugs to destroy the state statue of Christopher Columbus.

“Tim Walz did nothing to stop radical vandals from attacking the most prominent symbol of Italian-American culture in a blatant hate crime,” Crispi said. “He knew they were coming and he did nothing to protect the statue.” (…)

Crispi further said that private emails between Walz employees revealed the reason for this.

To appease indigenous activists and other anti-Italian American sympathizers, Walz and his henchmen conspired to tear down the statue,” 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 lot that is disgusting about labeling indigenous activists or anyone who opposes the celebration of Columbus as “anti-Italian-American.” Especially since, again, many Italian-Americans feel the same way.

Crispi, meanwhile, is the very last person anyone should accuse of disrespecting Italian culture. I only had to scroll down a short distance in the IACRL Twitter feed to see a tweet in which he wrote, “Trump closing the convention with classic Italian music by Pavarotti was PERFECT! IACRL approved!” and shared a video of the MAGA tenor singing No sleep.

Donate just once!

This can only mean one of two things: he thinks the guy is Luciano Pavarotti, who has been virtually dead since 2007, or he thinks Nessun Dorma, a very famous aria from Puccini’s Turandotis a Pavarotti original.

Now that is disrespectful to Italian culture.

Italian tenor serenades Florence with beautiful aria about wanting to marry a murderous princess

I would like to note, however, that the is a rather poetic choice, considering it’s a song sung by a man waiting to find out whether a woman will kill him.