An online petition at Change.org is seeking to rename Columbus, Ohio, because its namesake, Christopher Columbus, is just too much for the delicate snowflakes to handle.
“Columbus is an amazing city,” the petition reads, “but one whose name is tarnished by the very name itself. Its namesake, Christopher Columbus, is in The Bad Place because of all his raping, slave trading, and genocide. That’s not exactly a proud legacy.”
The petition, which has attracted roughly 35,000 signatures, proposes renaming the city Flavortown.
That is not a typo.
According to the petition, the new name is twofold. “For one, it honors Central Ohio’s proud heritage as a culinary crossroads and one of the nation’s largest test markets for the food industry. Secondly, cheflebrity Guy Fieri was born in Columbus, so naming the city in honor of him (he’s such a good dude, really) would be superior to its current nomenclature.”
I can’t even.
Fieri coined the term “Flavortown” in 2019, as a fictional culinary utopia, and it came completely by accident. “I just, unfortunately, run at the mouth. I just say things. Ten-plus years ago, I’m there in a diner, and I said to the guy — he made a pizza, I think — ‘That looks like a manhole cover in Flavortown.’ Because of how big it is,” he told The Wrap.
So obviously, rename a state capital after it, because, why not, right?
Surely, you can’t be serious.
Many people already refer to Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day, why not Indigenousburg?
Better yet, why not rename Columbus Toontown? Roger Rabbit could be the honorary mayor. Gotham City? They could shine an actual bat signal every night. Metropolis? They could retrofit a drone with a realistic figure of Superman and have it fly around the city.
Seriously, though, what does renaming a city accomplish? It’s time to stop this madness.
Last week Andrew Ginther, the mayor of Columbus said that the statue of Columbus outside City Hall would be removed and placed in storage. “For many people in our community, the statue represents patriarchy, oppression and divisiveness. That does not represent our great city, and we will no longer live in the shadow of our ugly past,” Ginther said in a statement.
I have a feeling he wants to be the mayor of Flavortown.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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