Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's the eightieth anniversary of w Elies Leora Italian. Yes,
eighty years ago a show about all things Italian aired
right here on this very station. And who better to
bring it back than Vinnie penn Well. And who better
to have on.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
When it comes to such a segment than the President
of the Italian American One Voice Coalition, Andre Domino. You
call Long Island home, Massapequa in particular, or just Long
Island in.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
General, No, I'm actually not. I'm actually in northern New Jersey.
The situation we're dealing with is in Long Island.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
It's a crazy story. Tell everyone about it, myself included.
I mean, I'm up to stuff to a degree on it.
But it's a crazy story.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
The school, the High School Massapequa, is being forced by
the state to eliminate their team name the Chiefs. Now,
you know the Chiefs is representative of Native Americans or
American Indians. So you might be saying, well, what's this
Italian American guy worrying about Native Americans? And that's because
we actually formed the historic alliance with the Native American
(01:08):
Guardians Association, because you know, they're trying to change Columbus Day.
The cancel culture is trying to give her a Columbus
Day in favor of Indigenous People's Day. So we actually
formed an alliance with the Native American Guardians Association because
they're dedicated to preserving Native American and American Indian names
and imagery. So here we got two groups that are
(01:29):
subject to cancel culture and we formed this alliance. So
it's you know, trying to unify instead of divide, which
many people do in this country. So we're fighting the
cancel culture. And this situation came up in Long Island
and we've taken a strong stand defending the Massapequa High
School in their pleasure to keep their name the Chiefs,
because that's a that's a name that's it's not a
(01:51):
slur as some people say, as the Native American Guardians
say that it's an honor of the Native Americans and
American Indians. So, you know, as Italian Americans, we joined
with our brothers and sister Native Americans and say stop
this cancel culture.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
When was this alliance formed.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
It's interesting, it was formed just last February. It's a
brand new It was reached out to the that's called
Naga Native American Guards Association and I had a meeting
in Pennsylvania, actually scrant Pennsylvania with about seven Italian American
organizations where we announced the alliance and from there forward
where I was actually Eunice Davidson, who was the president
(02:30):
and founder of NAGA, who flew out from North Dakota,
and both she and I made a presentation to these
groups of Italian Americans talking about this new alliance. And
since then, to keep it going, we've had a monthly
what we call Solidarity Session bridging Cultures against cancel culture,
and it's a zoom call and we every month talk
(02:50):
about what's affecting both groups.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I see here too, as far as the press release
that was sent to me, you know, outside of the
fact that it costs about a million dollars in rebranding.
Uh right, never mind, this is me going off script tradition.
You got kids going to this school. Who's you know, fathers, uncles,
you know, whoever you know played you know, were chiefs
(03:17):
in the past. It's just, uh, you know, there's all
that to factor in. But I see three fellow Long
Island towns were part of the Hail Mary legal action
to keep their team names, the Wantak Warriors the wyandock warrants,
warriors and the kind of talk, you know, good luck
to me thunderbirds. But what I found interesting about that
(03:42):
is why is it called a hail mary legal action?
What did they do that made it a hail Mary?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Well, because of the fact that you know, there was
already a decision to uphold you know, Governor Hocules attack
on these names and trying to change these names. So
what they're trying to do here is they're trying to
reverse that even though a decision was made. And that's
why I know they've even reached out to President Trump
to see if he could intervene and stop this. You know,
there's so many things to worry about nowadays. Do they
(04:09):
really have to spend their time in legal actions and
so forth to preserve a name that they respect. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, it's crazy. I can't even believe it's trickled down
to our high schools. I remember stunned at the whole
Redskins thing, and you know, I hate to be this guy,
you know, understanding after the fact, but I mean there
is a distinction there. I mean, that's skin color. You're
saying it in the name. Although I found that ridiculous too.
But Chiefs, that's perplexing to me. How does the school feel?
(04:42):
But are there people? Are there like some of those
you know, really highly evolved moms whose kids go to
Massapequa Hi who were like, it is wrong? Or is
the school for the most part against any change. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
No, although it's funny what you say, but it's no.
The school is united to preserve the name. They feel
it's it's historic. There's really no one locally that's trying
to change it. You know, it comes from the outside.
It comes from these people that you know, they just
want to change things and change our history and change
our world, just like you know, the getting rid of
Columbus Day and so forth. It's just it's just wrong.
(05:18):
We you know, that's a historic, iconic symbol to Italian Americans,
and unfortunately they want to change it. You know, they
want to change it to Indigenous People's Day. And here
we've got a big group of Indigenous people that don't
want to change Columbus Day. They want to celebrate right
along with us, and we want to celebrate with them
on their day. So you know, it's unfortunately it's people
that just have nothing to do and they want to
(05:38):
maybe create something to avoid us looking at what the
real problems are.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, and again Ron with Andre Demino, engineer CEO of
a medical devices company. But more importantly, as it pertains
to what we're doing right now, President of the Italian
American One Voice Coalition, New Jerseys on do you recall
to the episode and the Sopranos. I've watched the entire
series three times over. I have two kids, so I
(06:03):
watched it in real time. Then I watched it with
my first jib one. They're like, what is this show?
The Sopranos. I'm like, oh, you got to watch it.
Then the second one comes along years later, so I've
watched it in full three times. And the episode where
the Columbus statue is egged and they throw rope around it,
(06:27):
they want to pull it down. I'm sure you'll recall it.
Maybe you do, maybe you don't. The reason I bring
it up is is New Jersey where it started, as
that's how it was painted in the series. I mean,
that's going back to what two thousand and four, two
thousand and five, Either that or David Chase was way
ahead of the curve because he had it happening in
an episode as early as two thousand and four or five,
(06:47):
them trying to take down Columbus Day, and you come
to find out it was just political nonsense, payback and
you know, backscratching, and it had really nothing to do
with political correct somebody just wanted a payday.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well yeah, but you got to realize that it goes
all the way back to nineteen eighty because what you
had then was Howard Zinn who published his book. You know,
he's a self declared Marxist and anarchist that wanted to
destroy our company. So he published this false history book
attacking not only Columbus but our founding fathers by putting
all these fabricated lies and so forth, which have been
(07:24):
totally debunked. So you know, the attacks against Columbus and
statues goes back aways. Of course, they were accelerated after
the George Floyd incident, and you know, we saw that
all over the country. But it's got a long history.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, and I think that's what made it. And the
last time that I watched it was probably post pandemic.
It was, it was fairly recently, and I do remember
just sinking damn, you know, David Chase was way ahead
of the curve on this one in a tragic way,
because we had a Columbus. You know, we had a
statue here in New Haven. I don't know if you've
ever been to New Haven and Worcester Square where sure
(07:57):
Pepe's hobby Eats is. You know, all our pizza tler
and is gone. Now now there's just a family of
the a mom and dad and quote unquote. They could
be from anywhere. That's it. They just they hold the
whole thing down. They could be from anywhere.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
They say, yeah, well, Columbus is such an important figure
to generations of Italian Americans as that apology for being
the discrimination and denigration and of course the largest single
day lynching that occurred to Italian Americans. That's why in
eighteen ninety yeah, eleven innocent Italian Americans. That's why in
eighteen ninety two, on the four hundredth anniversary, President Harrison
(08:32):
declared the first Columbus Day as that atonement and apology.
So you know, it's important, it's important day. It's not
just Christopher Columbus, but it's because of that acceptance of
Italian immigrants to this country. So you know, we want
to fight that cancel culture. And that's why the Native
Americans and US work together to fight the cancer culture
affecting both groups.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, and how's the fight coming along in Long Island?
How are things looking?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Well, it's really just we're really starting to gather the troops.
Let's quote this way. We're talking to groups over there
and so forth. But you know, it's a legal process now,
and you know it's gotta it's you gotta fight this,
this state rule or state law to get rid of
this these imagery and names.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, would you agree with me Andre too? Before we
let you go? And I appreciate you coming on this morning,
and I wish you well with this fight though. Uh uh,
you know, cancel culture. It's this this scourge right now.
Although it's it's coming down a little bit. But it
was just nonsense, front to back.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
But it never pertained to Italians. I never felt like
it pertained to Italians. We were always fair, We were
fair game. Take your pot shots. I mean, my whole
life as of Vinnie, I introduced my I get my
cousin Vinnie jokes is your father and the mob jokes.
Italians are always expected. If I just say my name
(09:50):
Vinnie there a vinny. Yeah, we're just supposed to take it,
which we've got good sense we do. But every once
in a while I to be like, okay, well what
if we played hardball then uh, you know, but we don't.
I think we're the most insulted anywhere, the most pots
taken heritage there is.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
There's no question, and that's what we fight every day.
It's Thalian American one voice collision. When it comes to
Italian Americans. There is no political correctness where the last
ethnicity that it's okay to bash. And if you can see,
that's ubiquitous. It's ubiquitous. Every time you see somebody in
a movie or on a TV show that's Italian American,
they're either a bimbo buffoon or a mobster, a mafiosi.
(10:33):
It's just not fair.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, they come in and they're like Rocky knockoffs. You're
dating and Attain comes in and yeah, I've laughed along.
But we're at a point now where it's like, okay,
if everybody's going to be a big baby, I'll be
one two.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Well, it's not done. It's not done with any other ethnicity.
There's such sensitivity with everyone else
Speaker 2 (10:53):
If you agreed, because yeah, I've been saying that on
the air here for a while now.
It's the eightieth anniversary of w Elies Leora Italian. Yes,
eighty years ago a show about all things Italian aired
right here on this very station. And who better to
bring it back than Vinnie penn Well. And who better
to have on.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
When it comes to such a segment than the President
of the Italian American One Voice Coalition, Andre Domino. You
call Long Island home, Massapequa in particular, or just Long
Island in.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
General, No, I'm actually not. I'm actually in northern New Jersey.
The situation we're dealing with is in Long Island.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
It's a crazy story. Tell everyone about it, myself included.
I mean, I'm up to stuff to a degree on it.
But it's a crazy story.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
The school, the High School Massapequa, is being forced by
the state to eliminate their team name the Chiefs. Now,
you know the Chiefs is representative of Native Americans or
American Indians. So you might be saying, well, what's this
Italian American guy worrying about Native Americans? And that's because
we actually formed the historic alliance with the Native American
(01:08):
Guardians Association, because you know, they're trying to change Columbus Day.
The cancel culture is trying to give her a Columbus
Day in favor of Indigenous People's Day. So we actually
formed an alliance with the Native American Guardians Association because
they're dedicated to preserving Native American and American Indian names
and imagery. So here we got two groups that are
(01:29):
subject to cancel culture and we formed this alliance. So
it's you know, trying to unify instead of divide, which
many people do in this country. So we're fighting the
cancel culture. And this situation came up in Long Island
and we've taken a strong stand defending the Massapequa High
School in their pleasure to keep their name the Chiefs,
because that's a that's a name that's it's not a
(01:51):
slur as some people say, as the Native American Guardians
say that it's an honor of the Native Americans and
American Indians. So, you know, as Italian Americans, we joined
with our brothers and sister Native Americans and say stop
this cancel culture.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
When was this alliance formed.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
It's interesting, it was formed just last February. It's a
brand new It was reached out to the that's called
Naga Native American Guards Association and I had a meeting
in Pennsylvania, actually scrant Pennsylvania with about seven Italian American
organizations where we announced the alliance and from there forward
where I was actually Eunice Davidson, who was the president
(02:30):
and founder of NAGA, who flew out from North Dakota,
and both she and I made a presentation to these
groups of Italian Americans talking about this new alliance. And
since then, to keep it going, we've had a monthly
what we call Solidarity Session bridging Cultures against cancel culture,
and it's a zoom call and we every month talk
(02:50):
about what's affecting both groups.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I see here too, as far as the press release
that was sent to me, you know, outside of the
fact that it costs about a million dollars in rebranding.
Uh right, never mind, this is me going off script tradition.
You got kids going to this school. Who's you know, fathers, uncles,
you know, whoever you know played you know, were chiefs
(03:17):
in the past. It's just, uh, you know, there's all
that to factor in. But I see three fellow Long
Island towns were part of the Hail Mary legal action
to keep their team names, the Wantak Warriors the wyandock warrants,
warriors and the kind of talk, you know, good luck
to me thunderbirds. But what I found interesting about that
(03:42):
is why is it called a hail mary legal action?
What did they do that made it a hail Mary?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Well, because of the fact that you know, there was
already a decision to uphold you know, Governor Hocules attack
on these names and trying to change these names. So
what they're trying to do here is they're trying to
reverse that even though a decision was made. And that's
why I know they've even reached out to President Trump
to see if he could intervene and stop this. You know,
there's so many things to worry about nowadays. Do they
(04:09):
really have to spend their time in legal actions and
so forth to preserve a name that they respect. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, it's crazy. I can't even believe it's trickled down
to our high schools. I remember stunned at the whole
Redskins thing, and you know, I hate to be this guy,
you know, understanding after the fact, but I mean there
is a distinction there. I mean, that's skin color. You're
saying it in the name. Although I found that ridiculous too.
But Chiefs, that's perplexing to me. How does the school feel?
(04:42):
But are there people? Are there like some of those
you know, really highly evolved moms whose kids go to
Massapequa Hi who were like, it is wrong? Or is
the school for the most part against any change. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
No, although it's funny what you say, but it's no.
The school is united to preserve the name. They feel
it's it's historic. There's really no one locally that's trying
to change it. You know, it comes from the outside.
It comes from these people that you know, they just
want to change things and change our history and change
our world, just like you know, the getting rid of
Columbus Day and so forth. It's just it's just wrong.
(05:18):
We you know, that's a historic, iconic symbol to Italian Americans,
and unfortunately they want to change it. You know, they
want to change it to Indigenous People's Day. And here
we've got a big group of Indigenous people that don't
want to change Columbus Day. They want to celebrate right
along with us, and we want to celebrate with them
on their day. So you know, it's unfortunately it's people
that just have nothing to do and they want to
(05:38):
maybe create something to avoid us looking at what the
real problems are.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, and again Ron with Andre Demino, engineer CEO of
a medical devices company. But more importantly, as it pertains
to what we're doing right now, President of the Italian
American One Voice Coalition, New Jerseys on do you recall
to the episode and the Sopranos. I've watched the entire
series three times over. I have two kids, so I
(06:03):
watched it in real time. Then I watched it with
my first jib one. They're like, what is this show?
The Sopranos. I'm like, oh, you got to watch it.
Then the second one comes along years later, so I've
watched it in full three times. And the episode where
the Columbus statue is egged and they throw rope around it,
(06:27):
they want to pull it down. I'm sure you'll recall it.
Maybe you do, maybe you don't. The reason I bring
it up is is New Jersey where it started, as
that's how it was painted in the series. I mean,
that's going back to what two thousand and four, two
thousand and five, Either that or David Chase was way
ahead of the curve because he had it happening in
an episode as early as two thousand and four or five,
(06:47):
them trying to take down Columbus Day, and you come
to find out it was just political nonsense, payback and
you know, backscratching, and it had really nothing to do
with political correct somebody just wanted a payday.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well yeah, but you got to realize that it goes
all the way back to nineteen eighty because what you
had then was Howard Zinn who published his book. You know,
he's a self declared Marxist and anarchist that wanted to
destroy our company. So he published this false history book
attacking not only Columbus but our founding fathers by putting
all these fabricated lies and so forth, which have been
(07:24):
totally debunked. So you know, the attacks against Columbus and
statues goes back aways. Of course, they were accelerated after
the George Floyd incident, and you know, we saw that
all over the country. But it's got a long history.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, and I think that's what made it. And the
last time that I watched it was probably post pandemic.
It was, it was fairly recently, and I do remember
just sinking damn, you know, David Chase was way ahead
of the curve on this one in a tragic way,
because we had a Columbus. You know, we had a
statue here in New Haven. I don't know if you've
ever been to New Haven and Worcester Square where sure
(07:57):
Pepe's hobby Eats is. You know, all our pizza tler
and is gone. Now now there's just a family of
the a mom and dad and quote unquote. They could
be from anywhere. That's it. They just they hold the
whole thing down. They could be from anywhere.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
They say, yeah, well, Columbus is such an important figure
to generations of Italian Americans as that apology for being
the discrimination and denigration and of course the largest single
day lynching that occurred to Italian Americans. That's why in
eighteen ninety yeah, eleven innocent Italian Americans. That's why in
eighteen ninety two, on the four hundredth anniversary, President Harrison
(08:32):
declared the first Columbus Day as that atonement and apology.
So you know, it's important, it's important day. It's not
just Christopher Columbus, but it's because of that acceptance of
Italian immigrants to this country. So you know, we want
to fight that cancel culture. And that's why the Native
Americans and US work together to fight the cancer culture
affecting both groups.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, and how's the fight coming along in Long Island?
How are things looking?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Well, it's really just we're really starting to gather the troops.
Let's quote this way. We're talking to groups over there
and so forth. But you know, it's a legal process now,
and you know it's gotta it's you gotta fight this,
this state rule or state law to get rid of
this these imagery and names.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, would you agree with me Andre too? Before we
let you go? And I appreciate you coming on this morning,
and I wish you well with this fight though. Uh uh,
you know, cancel culture. It's this this scourge right now.
Although it's it's coming down a little bit. But it
was just nonsense, front to back.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
But it never pertained to Italians. I never felt like
it pertained to Italians. We were always fair, We were
fair game. Take your pot shots. I mean, my whole
life as of Vinnie, I introduced my I get my
cousin Vinnie jokes is your father and the mob jokes.
Italians are always expected. If I just say my name
(09:50):
Vinnie there a vinny. Yeah, we're just supposed to take it,
which we've got good sense we do. But every once
in a while I to be like, okay, well what
if we played hardball then uh, you know, but we don't.
I think we're the most insulted anywhere, the most pots
taken heritage there is.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
There's no question, and that's what we fight every day.
It's Thalian American one voice collision. When it comes to
Italian Americans. There is no political correctness where the last
ethnicity that it's okay to bash. And if you can see,
that's ubiquitous. It's ubiquitous. Every time you see somebody in
a movie or on a TV show that's Italian American,
they're either a bimbo buffoon or a mobster, a mafiosi.
(10:33):
It's just not fair.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, they come in and they're like Rocky knockoffs. You're
dating and Attain comes in and yeah, I've laughed along.
But we're at a point now where it's like, okay,
if everybody's going to be a big baby, I'll be
one two.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Well, it's not done. It's not done with any other ethnicity.
There's such sensitivity with everyone else
Speaker 2 (10:53):
If you agreed, because yeah, I've been saying that on
the air here for a while now.
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