History professor Howard Zinn did not instigate ignorant anti-Columbus Day hysteria

 

Subject: Howard Zinn wrongly vilified on Gene Valicenti's radio program
To: letters <letters@providencejournal.com>

        I absolutely agree with the position of the organization often described as  the " Italian-American Anti-Defamation  League " , their view  on the disgrace of dishonoring Columbus Day and on the prejudicial depiction of Italian-Americans in the entertainment media ( for example, the popular TV series " The Sopranos " or  " Jersey Shore ") . Way back on May 4, 1967, as reported in the Providence Journal :  Frank Sinatra   ..." will head a national campaign to combat defamation of Italian Americans who unjustly have been identified with the Mafia and Cosa Nostra... "

                   But  a voice of the outraged Italian -American community on Gene Valicenti's radio show this morning ( 10/7/ 2021 )  630WPRO.COM ( no surprise just before Columbus Day!  )   falsely , I think , associated the left-wing historian Howard Zinn- himself from a Jewish background - with instigating the HATE COLUMBUS  hysteria. 

                      If Howard Zinn damned Columbus, it was only in the  context of  his  approach to  American history : viewing it from the point of view of the oppressed.   Zinn  certainly agreed  with democratic socialists and orthodox Marxists in seeing the CLASS basis of so much social injustice..   Way back in 1965 Black Muslim Malcolm X made a connection between racism and imperialism, between  racism and capitalism . My favorite Malcolm X quote : " Show me a capitalist and I will show you a blood sucker " .

        Given this approach to American history , I can't see Howard Zinn today being a voice for CRITICAL RACE THEORY . In fact, Howard Zinn was a scathing critic of ZIONIST APARTHEID Israel.-and ALL of America's more foolish wars.

          Writing in The New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert wrote:

["Mr. Zinn was often taken to task for peeling back the rosy veneer of much of American history to reveal sordid realities that had remained hidden for too long.