I feel like it's being lost in the conversation that no modern American has an issue with Columbus because he was Italian.

The negative sentiment exists because Columbus was, charitably, a somewhat careless credit-stealer who failed upward and ended up way out of his depth, whose major claim to fame was accomplished by someone else 500 years prior.

Less charitably, he was a ruthless mercenary colonizer blinded by the promise of wealth whose exploration directly led to hundreds of years of oppression and subjugation that some have termed a genocide.

The recasting of Columbus as an Italian Hero doesn't jive with a modern understanding of his role in America's history.