Amerika

Following our discussion of the utter disaster of Irish immigration, we can now take a look at a storied moment in Italian immigrant history through the Italian-American Civil Rights League:

Proud Italian-Americans from all over the New York metropolitan area gathered to voice their opposition to what they considered government prejudice against their people. They had a particular beef with the FBI. They felt that all Italian-Americans were being tarred with the Mafia brush. Just because a few Italians had established La Cosa Nostra, they certainly werent all criminals, but the FBI, they claimed, treated them that way.

The crowd cheered when they spotted Joseph Colombo, the founder of the Italian-American Civil Rights League, emerging from his car and making his way through the throng on foot. Oddly enough, Joe Colombo was the reigning boss of the New York crime family that bore his name. For some inexplicable reason, the leagues supporters didnt see the irony.

Colombo had started the league the year before to retaliate against what he considered unfair harassment from the FBI. On April 30, 1970, Colombos son Joseph Jr. had been arrested for melting down quarters, dimes, and nickels for their silver content, hoping to earn more than the face value of the coins. As mob expert Jerry Capeci points out, the arrest was a pressure tactic aimed at the young mans father, but Joe Colombo cried foul and impetuously struck back by sending a gang of his men to picket FBI headquarters in Manhattan.

Against discrimination, you? And definitely not connected to organized crime. No, it was a cover story for it. As it turns out, the typical Italian (crime) family just wanted the government to stop investigating it for… crime:

In April of 1970 Colombo accused the FBI of racial profiling Italian Americans and picketed the New York FBI headquarters. He also founded the Italian American Civil Rights League to deflect government investigations of his activities, and membership quickly swelled to 125,000 members. In response to the public spectacle and potential political fallout, the FBI ceased to use the words Mafia and Cosa Nostra, terms that were deemed potentially offensive. In 1971 Colombo even went so far as to have the script for The Godfather (1972) remove these words before shooting of the film was to begin.

You mean the one thing these IPJI could have done — stopping the crimes — was the one thing they would not do, and they would do anything else to avoid that. This is standard criminal behavior.

In fact, the goal was to humiliate those who simply wanted to stop crime:

IT was to be a celebrazione, a party, an old-fashioned T-shirt, hot-dog and straw-hat festival of ethnic pride. Manhattan’s Columbus Circle was roofed with plastic streamers in red, white and green, the colors of the old country. The guy wires hummed in the breeze as an organ on the bandstand piped out random tunes for the early arrivals. Vendors set up rows of gaily colored booths to sell buttons (WE’RE NO. l), pennants (ITALIAN POWER!) and other paraphernalia of prideful protest. Now, in the already shimmering morning heat, the buses came rolling in from Corona in Queens, Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, Greenwich Village and all the Little Italys of the city. The occasion was the Italian-American Civil Rights League’s second annual Unity Day, and it was meant to be fun for everyone.

No one was looking to enjoy himself more than Joseph Colombo Sr., 48, the league’s burly founder, unofficial leader and chief promoter. The head of one of New York’s five Mafia families of organized crime, Colombo had discovered a double life through the league. Started casually, in one year it grew into a genuine vehicle of expression for thousands of Americans of Italian descent who had nothing to do with the Mafia or crime. Harnessing their honest sentiments, Colombo had helped Italian Americans to achieve new pride — and managed to do a few things for the narrower cause as well, like embarrassing the Justice Department and The Godfather film makers into dropping the words Mafia and Cosa Nostra from their vocabulary.

Thus, on his day, Colombo moved easily through the crowd, shaking hands, joking, posing for photographers. Suddenly shots rang out, barely audible above the noise of the happy crowd. Colombo crumpled to the ground, bleeding heavily from the head and neck.

He even used alleged innocents, who may really have had nothing to do with the Mafia, to enlarge his political power so that he could commit more crimes.

This is how all diversity groups from IPJI through Africans, Indians, and Orientals behave. Their goal is to conquer because they fear the host population will come to its senses and reclaim its power and authority.

And that would interrupt the crimes.

Tags: civil rights, IPJI, italian-american crime, italian-americans, joseph colombo