Columbus Day Controversy in Somerville: What do You Think?
Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone fired back at a Boston Herald columnist for her piece titled "Fun takes a holiday in Somerville."
A Boston Herald column titled "Fun takes a holiday in Somerville" caused a stir Friday, and now Somerville's mayor has fired back. The column describes an email sent by Anne Foley, principal of the John F. Kennedy Elementary School, to teachers at the school. The email, according to the column, takes aim at Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. The Boston Herald column quotes from the email, in which Foley wrote, "When we were young we might have been able to claim ignorance of the atrocities that Christopher Columbus committed against the indigenous people … for many of us and our students celebrating this particular person is an insult and a slight to the people he annihilated. On the same lines, we need to be careful around the Thanksgiving …
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E Hines
9:47 am on Friday, October 21, 2011
I blogged on this a bit ago (http://aplebessite.com/2011/10/16/holidays-and-insensitivity/ ), asking some questions of Drs Foley and Pierantozzi, questions that I also emailed directly to the two. To date, I've not received any answers. Although I didn't mention it in my post, I also emailed Jessica Heslam, the other of the Boston Herald article of interest, requesting access to the Foley email … more ›