New World Order
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Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures. - Cesar Chavez
It appears that the battle lines are being drawn in recognizing our rights, responsibilities and to celebrate our individual and collective heritage and the sacrifices of those who have gone before us, with one group vying for position over those of other groups throughout our nation and specifically in Baltimore.
The D’Alesandro family is a known Democrat dynasty with two former Baltimore mayors, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., later his son, Thomas D'Alesandro III and then his daughter, Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi, becoming the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. The family fortunes and political influence rose from a small house in Baltimore's Little Italy. It was those of Italian heritage that were the primary political power brokers in Baltimore city for many decades before progressivism and a shifting of political influence in Baltimore began to take hold, with the city still remaining under Democrat control.
On the evening of July 4th of this year, while much of America was celebrating our nation’s Independence, several hundred “protesters mobilized by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police” (USA TODAY) destroyed a statue of Christopher Columbus at the west entrance of the D’Alesandro’s Little Italy neighborhood. Throwing ropes around the statue, the mob pulled the monument from its pedestal with an impact that broke it to pieces, dragging it to water’s edge, and dumping it into the Baltimore harbor as reported by national media and seen on national television. Although the Baltimore City Police were present, they had reportedly been given orders to “stand down.” The Promotion Center for Little Italy Baltimore, a nonprofit promoting community heritage, has weighed in:
The statue of Christopher Columbus was built with funds raised largely by Baltimore’s Italian American community. It was carved in Italy, gifted to the City of Baltimore, and dedicated by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. It has been a sense of immense pride for the people of Little Italy and those of Italian descent with annual celebrations around the Columbus Day holiday including parades, wreath-layings, and Italian festivals. It is a symbol of immigration to America which attracted hundreds of thousands of people from around the world to seek improved lives for their families. In that spirit is what we as ancestors of Italian immigrants struggle to preserve. A piece of Little Italy’s heart was destroyed along with this statue. The “protesters” gave no thought to the Italian immigrant experience in the United States which included ample discrimination, abuse, starvation, and lynchings.
Now add a third faction to the mix. The Baltimore City Police Department and its Fraternal Order of Police representatives have been further drawn in to the fray when a Baltimore city councilman by the name of Ryan Dorsey tweeted “How is it with all the attention given to the Columbus monuments, and as consistently awful as the FOP is, how is the FOP memorial not on the list of monuments to remove?” The latest proposal in the alternative is to dedicate a memorial to those mortally wounded by police in proximity to the tribute to our fallen officers.
The truth is that this memorial is not an FOP memorial although members of the FOP have taken it upon themselves to keep the area clean along with the victims' families who raised money in their honor to have a place in the city where they could remember their loved ones who were killed in the line of duty. This has been said to be akin to the desecration of graves if harmed or removed.
Dorsey later acknowledged the comments that the memorial might not be an "FOP memorial," but said the FOP is a "toxic, divisive organization" and wondered: "Why would such an organization have a monument in Baltimore City?"
FOP lawyers, at the direction of Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #3 President Mike Mancuso, wrote a letter calling out Dorsey’s “veiled threats” and clearly articulating to the police commissioner that the expectation is that the Baltimore City Police Memorial to those killed in the line of duty to the City of Baltimore will be protected from harm or removal.
Meanwhile, lame duck Baltimore Mayor Jack Young recently vetoed a passed city council bill, introduced by Councilman Ryan Dorsey, to rename a Columbus monument that is overlooking the memorial to officers killed in the line of duty to “the monument of victims of police violence” as an alternative to removal of the fallen officer’s tribute. It is unclear how the new incoming administration will deal with this matter.
While the lines may be drawn in the battle to preserve our own heritage and history, respecting backgrounds and sacrifices of others is essential if we are to move forward in an intelligent and informed manner. While we seem to be in the midst of revolutionary times with a push toward a New World Order, studying history is necessary to avoid repeating past mistakes. After all, as George Santayana, a Spanish-born American author of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Or as Winston Churchill lamented, “A nation that forgets its past has no future.”
Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com
