Sometime late Monday night, unknown perpetrators crept into New York's Central Park to give a statue of genocidal, native-enslaving, disease-spreading Christopher Columbus blood-red hands; on his base, they also scrawled the message, "Hate Will Not Be Tolerated" and #Somethingscoming. The next day, the always-stellar NYPD announced that its Hate Crime Task Force were investigating the act as a "hate crime." Yes: A statue reading, "Hate Will Not Be Tolerated" is being investigated as a hate crime. The irony of the charge wasn't lost on the folks at Death and Taxes, who noted several other vile acts - the murder of a Muslim girl, the killing of 49 queer people at a Florida night club, the attempted lynching of a bi-racial boy, any anti-gay crime in West Virginia - authorities have inexplicably not deemed "hate crimes."

Meanwhile, amidst the current debate on historical statues, a few people wondered if Columbus was being hated on for his heritage - a notion dispelled as quickly as city workers cleaned off the statue. "Fellow-Italian Americans - this is not a thing," said one of the clan. "Stop it. I honestly forgot that Columbus was Italian...considering that he was a PoS human being." In fact, more heretical New Yorkers judged the vandalism an improved version of the hapless, gold-hungry explorer who never landed on U.S. soil, infamously mistreated the native population he found in the Indies, and sought to "exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy" in the name of greed. "I think it's a good look, honestly," said Christen Clifford. "I think that with Christopher Columbus and colonialism, we have a lot of blood on our hands in this country."

In "History Is A Weapon," Howard Zinn quoted from Columbus' journals, describing his arrival in the Indies and the response by Arawak peoples, "naked and full of wonder," who ran to greet them.

"They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned...They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane...They would make fine servants...With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."