Scotch Plains is a town that promotes diversity and equality for all of its residents and contains a significant amount of Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC). That being said, many of these Scotch Plains residents have had their cultures, heritages, and ancestries decimated from the racist colonization, genocide, rape, and enslavement of millions of BIPOC at the hands of Christopher Columbus. The effects of the barbaric Trans-Atlantic Slave trade that lasted over 400 years are still felt to this day by Scotch Plains's current community members of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Hispanic descent.

There is currently a statue of Christopher Columbus's hand that sits in the center of town in front of the Scotch Plains police department and municipal building. We, as taxpayers of a town that is supposed to promote diversity and equality, demand that the statue be removed immediately as it promotes an atmosphere of white supremacy, imperialism, genocide, racism, and rape. Having a statue in front of the most notable building in town only perpetuates these ideas of racism and white supremacy that exist currently within our own town and this country. Columbus is not reflective of the supposed views of our town and he should not be martyred in this town. 

We demand the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue immediately.