Are White Americans the good guys of history? There are two main answers to this:
- No, of course not: Genocide, slavery, Jim Crow, wars of empire in Mexico, the Caribbean, Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. Overthrow of governments, support for cruel dictators. Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, drones. And so on. They are just another dirty, ugly empire.
- Yes: Whatever bad they have done, everyone does. What good they have done, few achieve. The Mongols wiped out more people, Brazil had more black slaves, Rome never freed its slaves, etc. White-dominated America has brought the world freedom, democracy and television. It freed and rebuilt western Europe. It has pretty much kept the world at peace for nearly 70 years, a peace that Churchill thought would not last much more than 30 years, a peace that could have ended in the death and destruction of Europe and North America.
The truth is, like everyone else, White Americans are a mix of good and evil.
That said, they are nowhere nearly as good as they imagine. That for several reasons:
- American exceptionalism. They see themselves as being above history, the shining city on the hill, a light to all the world, what the whole world wants to be like. God is on their side. This goes back to the Puritans. They thought God was on their side too – as they burned peaceful Pequot Indians alive. Little has changed.
- Moral blindness. To maintain their self-image as Basically Good they do not face up to the evil they do – which makes them yet more evil.
- They write the history books – as winners do. But, as if basking in their own whitewashed mythology was not good enough, they also believe in the Teflon Theory of History: that anything bad that took place over 30 years ago is Ancient History – it has Absolutely No Effect on the present.
- They control the world’s biggest media machine – meaning they live in a land filled with their own self-serving lies and point of view.
This is why I do not waste my breath saying much good about whites. They are already tooting their own horn, the biggest in history.
They rarely hear the voices of those they screw over. They have arranged life so that they live in the constant sound of their own praise. So much so that they can no longer tell the difference between criticism and hatred, between truth and feeling.
By and large they seem incapable of seeing themselves objectively in the third person. They cannot see the dirty, ugly empire they run. They cannot see themselves as history will see them, as yet another country, not as the Automatic Good Guys of History. They have no Thucydides.
After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington they said, “Why do they hate us?”, making plain the profound historical coma into which they have slipped. Their president answered, “They hate our freedoms.”
See also:
Abagond 
True enough. But the statement, “They have no Thucydides” isn’t entirely fair. There may be no master historian among so-called whites with a profoundly recognized antithesis/antidote to the reigning notion of history propounded by white supremacy. One would not expect there to be such a high profile scholar in a culture of white supremacy. But don’t forget the individual “white” historians who work in various fields of study and engage white supremacy and provide a historical narration that is both factual and fair. For instance, the late Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History of the United States; or William Loren Katz, who has provided corrective and deeply researched insights into the “Old West,” with books like Black Indians; and don’t forget Martin Bernal, who has been attacked by white supremacist historians for his magisterial, Black Athena: The AfroAsiatic Roots of Civilization. I understand that these only prove the larger point you make; but some of them have made profoundly important contributions.
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Pretty accurate. I would also include the millions of white americans who were exploited, screwed over by the other white americans. Just look what Rockefeller did to his workers, how dozens of immigrant women burnt to death around hundred years ago in clothing factory in New Yorks Lower East Side because the doors were locked and windows barred, just like recently in Pakistan etc.
They somehow polish and romantices even that horrible chapter in their own history. It becomes a romantic tale about the rise of white immigrant, arrival to the Promised land, and yet, millions of those white immigrants died prematurely in horrible slums, dangerous factories, death trap mines etc.
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Just out of curiosity, do you ever get tired of complaining?
I am sorry for being blunt but that seems like all you do on this blog. Excuses and complaints are something I have heard from those in my government who don’t want to do the hard work and implement the reforms which are needed to make my country more prosperous. You have the opportunity to become wealthy (at least in my ignorant non-American mind), yet you consistently whine about things and don’t do anything.
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@Ineedtoselectanameandstickwithit:
You think writing this blog is doing nothing? Dicussion, agrumentation, exchange of ideas, freedom of speech is nothing? Thats weird…
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@ Ineedtoselectanameandstickwithit
I did not see this post as complaining.
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@ Louis DeCaro Jr.
Fair point. I like Zinn (and James Loewen). I have heard of Katz and Bernal but have not yet read their books. Are there any other historians like them that you recommend?
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Thank you for all your information and keep up the GOOD WORK.
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@ Ineedtoselectanameandstickwithit
Do you regularly go to blogs and complain? I mean that is what you are doing right now.
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The first picture taken of the raising of the flag on Iowa Jima had a African American in it, but the photograph was rejected because a Negro was in it. The flag raising was re staged without the Negro presence, who was replaced by a Native American and that is the photo we see today.
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Hey, Rome totally fred its slaves!
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“They control the world’s biggest media machine”.
White Supremacists would disagree with that, they believe that Hollywood and the mainstream media are controlled by the Jews.
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“4. They control the world’s biggest media machine – meaning they live in a land filled with their own self-serving lies and point of view.”
********
Abagond-
You left one out:
5. Their Treasury PRINTS the world’s default currency, THE DOLLAR, with impunity (and easily observable inflation). The world’s nations sees this economic calamity handwriting on the world and are beginning to distance themselves away from this withering currency.
Woe to Humpty-Dumpty (plus the kings horses and men: AMERICANS) when – not if – this runaway fiat printing/spending BUBBLE bursts!
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@ Legion
I have yet to read this post to say if I truly agree or disagree, but what Ineedtoselectanameandstickwithit did was perform an act I will refer to as the pot calling the kettle black. I have a thing with people being hypocritical at times. Sorry a bit of a pet peeve for me. Then the assumption of what a person does or does not do aside from this blog is also a bit annoying.
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@ Legion
continued
Everyone complains but it is fair to say…if it is not something that interest you then stop reading it and staying long enough to complain. If I am not interested in something I read it and don’t comment. It is odd to me why anyone would read and read the blog constantly and comment to say all the post are complaining.
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1. American Exceptionalism:
Well; its kind of true just about every major nation has emulated the US to some extent, the problem is, the US is too cocky about being “the greatest” and now we are left behind, they’ve emulated us and exceeded us in many ways.
2. Moral Blindness:
It could be argued that whites in the US face the evil that they have done more so than any other group.
I mean we know about Jim Crow, Segregation, Slavery, Genocide and mistreatment of the Natives, sexism and the various social ills that have existed in the past at least.
3. Write Own History Books:
Well yeah….most nations and cultures do.
And sure they focus on mostly white people but until relatively recently white people were a vast majority with the majority of all wealth, social connections etc….and so on, the nature of oppression means a lot of the people who would have been einsteins end up working in the fields instead.
4. Have Largest Media:
True but the media’s a wiley beast, its hard to ever truly say anyone actually controls it.
Another reasons why people in the US don’t look at themselves as bad is; aside from a historical perspective they don’t look at things done by groups based here as being something done by americans as a whole.
By and large they play it off as corrupt politicians, greedy businessmen screwing other people/nations over and tend to look at white psycho’s as individuals vs group confirmation as they do everyone else.
And of course the reality is; they are unwilling to accept that they could be different from others, sure everybodies evil but we aren’t all evil in teh same way and so it doesn’t even occur to them that we represent our culture and values and how they form us.
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“I was silent for quite awhile, finally I made my own point about complaints about things which are just pecadillos versus actually addressing and doing something about real problems. I’m sure little Miss Wallis is just fine, thank you.”
Legion, when is ok to complain and when is it not ok?
Those peccadilloes are often to tied in to the larger problems. Usually, the things you refer to as small or not a real problem are just specific occurrences of what you call the real issues.
So I don’t believe small issues are the problem, if they are actually representative of the larger issue. These peccadilloes illustrate the overall issue and help people to understand.
People need to understand the problem before they take action. I think complaining is good as long as it motivates action.
There are some people who think complaining in and of itself is enough. The act of complaining reduces their need and motivation to take action and be proactive. I’m sure most of us at some point in time behave like this.
I don’t think this post is an example of complaining. It is strictly informative and doesn’t present a problem. On the contrary, it is a solution to a problem.
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I think the point expressed by a few here is that basically it is no different and equally problematic regularly and blanketly calling very large groups of people “white,” as it is with “Indian”/”Native”, etc (the topic of yesterday’s posting.) Both are racialized terms with similar consequences, similar glossings over the “truth.” Of course, “whites” have done many bad things, but history does tell us that any socially constructed group, especially one on such a large scale, is going to be guilty of many good and many bad things. What is “good” and “bad” shifts with perspective, context, and time, as well.
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“V-4@
Well; its kind of true just about every major nation has emulated the US to some extent, the problem is, the US is too cocky about being “the greatest” and now we are left behind, they’ve emulated us and exceeded us in many ways.
Abagond@After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington they said, “Why do they hate us?”, making plain the profound historical coma into which they have slipped. Their president answered, “They hate our freedoms”
Linda says,
so yes, for sure, America has done good and bad. I don’t know if “emulate” is the proper description.
The US “forced” many countries to do things “their way or else”; they supported the overthrowing of governments and backed puppet dictators (like with Cuba during the Batista era)… and many countries cooperated because they were receiving benefits in exchange for giving the US what they wanted.
This “cooperation” allowed these countries to get financial and technological assistance.
the down side is the misleading or omitted information that the American people don’t get to learn — such as the fact that the US did NOT end WW2 in Europe — it was truly a joint effort, with Russia doing most of the leg work — the German army lost 90% of it’s army fighting the Russians.
It was the Russians that found and started liberating the Jews (and others) in the concentration camps — not the US. The US did end their war with Japan by dropping the bomb but as far as west Europe, the British and French held it down and the US came in towards the end.
History in the US has a problem with giving credit where credit is due because most Americans believe that the US won the Entire WW2 all by itself and that’s just not true
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN1sDf0eZ3c)
that’s why when the American people were asking the question of “why do they hate us?” and most foreigners were like, “Are you kidding?” why are Americans so clueless?
even though, to be fair, one-sided presentations of historical events, happens in all countries, so America is not exceptional in this matter as far as media and spin control.
That’s why the Internet is both a good and bad thing. The common people can learn information that they never learned or were exposed to but the downside is that people with agendas, can put out distorted information and half-truths on the Internet and call it “the gospel”
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Abagond,
This post feels really timely. Between the fight for GMO free food, the HUGE leak that came in the news of America’s ACTIVE participation in spying and recording its citizens…the almost laughably corrupt govt reps we have,I feel like the things are beginning to try and find their way full circle.
I believe the heir of “whiteness” is starting to stink and that everything arrogant truth they were taught to believe about themselves is being sliced to it’s death with a samurai blade as the mirror is placed squarely in front of them.
I also believe that MORAL BLINDNESS, LACK OF EMPATHY, LACK/LOSS of TRUE SPIRITUALITY and MAJOR DISRESPECT FOR EARTH is the “white man’s” claim to fame…they avenue to all this FAKE WEALTH and PAPER MONEY. How can you defeat a group of ppl that have NO regard for the rules/laws of anything natural??? Ppl who cringe at the thought of not making a profit off of natural cures, thereby HIDING all knowledge of them?? Who try and PATENT human cells and flowers????
As an example, today I was listening to a radio show about the top priority programs actively in use to collect and store data on us, including cell phones. The very “intellectually irate” white guy was on talking about our Freedoms being taken the complete lack of transparency the Prez promised…etc.and how this man (the whistle-blower) had to have a “real conscious” because he was making 200,000 a year and living in Hawaii! By his own validation, he has placed value on the system of white supremacy and its worship of money at the TOP, because surely the rest of the ppl involved can sleep at night with their fat wallets while American govt treats us all as criminals! Bullying corporations out of our private info in the name of protecting us from Al-Queda!
And the kicker, they are treating this man as a hostile! HE’s the bad guy for having a CONSCIOUS, fleeing to Hong Kong before he could say anything!
If all of America’s poor, “minority: population disappeared tomorrow, you would still be eating cancer causing, poisonous food, Chem sprayed air, you would still remain deeply indebted to your “worst enemies” and your would remain light years behind “third world” and other green economies because your precious leaders will have their heads in the sand, digging for oil.
Now, I ask..who is really your worst enemy?
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@ Linda
“The US “forced” many countries to do things “their way or else”; they supported the overthrowing of governments and backed puppet dictators (like with Cuba during the Batista era)… and many countries cooperated because they were receiving benefits in exchange for giving the US what they wanted.”
Exactly. This is the main point I was making when I spoke of things coming full circle. White privilege thrives on ignorance, willing or not.And as painful and ego shattering realizing the need to publicly call out, debunk and fight against your own, “real ‘mericans” before you kill each other–you will be forced to face the atrocities of you all killing each other and the planet while simultaneously not being able to conceive–and continue your until one day, .hopefully, something sticks.
These random terrorist attacks done to whites by whites as well as the whistle-blowing this is beginning to happen and I believe will happen more and more is a push for Universal balance. .
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Another excellent post, Abagond. History is a weapon, and is being used to hem in the mind of both poor Whites and non-Whites in our present world.
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History is always written by the conquerors
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Another riveting post.
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yes white america is the hero of his story. But they are the villains in reality. They are the same as they have always been brutally oppressive ruled by their carnal lower selves. nothing has changed but their tactics from overt to covert. they are so amused by their lies they seek credit for ending their own injustices which never ended.
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“It has pretty much kept the world at peace for nearly 70 years, a peace that Churchill thought would not last much more than 30 years, a peace that could have ended in the death and destruction of Europe and North America.” I dont get this sentence. They have kept the peace how exactly?, by being the ones with the biggest army on these continents..?
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@Barchan
Pretty much. And by preventing/avoiding a nuclear holocaust.
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This reminds me of the post about history that is white washed.
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History is a set of lies agreed upon.
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“They control the world’s biggest media machine – meaning they live in a land filled with their own self-serving lies and point of view.”
Number 4 is very revealing. Mainly because we you control the media you alter the perception of others. You can portray yourselves as heroes,good guys and the great problem solvers. And also degrade the images of other races by reinforcing negative stereotypes.
The good guys?? Lol You must be kidding! The farthest thing from it!lol
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Indeed, this particular blog post is more or less a repeat of a combination of prior posts repackaged into a new post, but with little new material or insight.
Of course we need to learn our history and the current state of affairs.
What I would like to see more of is … a call for action, or at least ideas on what we could do. Otherwise, we might just feel helpless.
For example, what can we do about being bombarded with White history and whitewashed history? I started to suspect something was wrong about school by the time I got be about 14-15. What do people like Loewen tell us to do?
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Hell no!! Experience and history tells otherwise! History paints Whites as evil, deceptive, manipulative, power hungry, war mongering and evil people who practiced imperialism and colonialism to conquer non Whites and steal their land. The effects of imperialism and colonialism has negatively affected Asians, Hispanics and especially Blacks. I know my people have been brainwashed to hate their nose, skin color and hair because it doesn’t fit White standards of beauty. Guess what my people, you are beautiful! Don’t ever think otherwise!
Yes Whites are the bad guys of history and their population is decreasing worldwide as payback for the wrongdoings that they have done to Blacks and other non Whites. Karma is a bitch!
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[…] Are White Americans the good guys of history? There are two main answers to this: No, of course not: Genocide, slavery, Jim Crow, wars of empire in Mexico, the Caribbean, Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq… […]
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Jefe,
“Of course we need to learn our history and the current state of affairs.
What I would like to see more of is … a call for action, or at least ideas on what we could do. Otherwise, we might just feel helpless.”
What form would this call for action take?
What ideas do you have?
We could learn our history. We could write about it from our viewpoint. No need to feel helpless.
There are are a lot of posts on this blog about our history and the current state of affairs. A lot of recommended books.
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My first impulse is to review the curriculum decisions of the state, county and city school boards across the USA, I would push for all Americans to be required to learn something other than white American history.
Unfortunately, I moved away from the USA many years ago. There were many reasons for that, and many reasons why I do not want to go back. But part of the reason was the disgust I had with how everything got whitewashed.
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@ V-4
White Americans take that for granted but not everyone has that privilege.
First, there are blacks, Chicanos, Indians and so on in America itself. They are forced to learn the white version of history. Anything else, like slave patrols or the Mali Empire, they have to learn on their own. And even then, the picture most Americans have of your people is largely determined by white Hollywood, white historians, white journalists and state school boards that are mostly white. This is not a small matter.
More:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/hb-2281-arizonas-law-to-ban-ethnic-studies/
Second, even in Japan and Germany, they do not have complete freedom to write history the way they want because they lost the Second World War. Thus Germany has to teach the evils of the Nazis and the Holocaust – because they lost. In Japan comfort women and the Rape of Nanking cannot be completely avoided – because they lost. As the losers they get their historical pants pulled down in front of the whole world.
More:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/japanese-history-textbooks/
If Japan and Germany had won, the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking could be completely left out or even be presented in a good light. They would have the freedom to tell history as they wished. White America has that freedom or, rather, power – just like how America has a de facto licence to print the world’s main form of money, as Matari pointed out.
The winners write the history books.
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@ V-4
Another example are Jewish Americans. Both they and Israel are presented in a good light. The Jewish Holocaust is a Thing in America in a way that the African and Native Holocausts are not. Israel is one of the most savage, evil countries in the world but is painted as a bastion of civilization and humanism. Why? Partly because many of the cultural workers in the U.S. – professors, writers, reporters, editors, teachers, actors, film directors, Hollywood producers, etc – are Jewish.
More:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/if-the-holocaust-was-a-part-of-black-history/
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@ Legion
2. Jewish advertisers, which affects newspapers, magazines and television.
3. The assimilation of Jewish Americans as white.
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Jefe,
“I would push for all Americans to be required to learn something other than white American history.”
We do this now.
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@Solesearch
I agree but most history books I have read in school, mind me, I am a high school student, still caters to the White point of view. No, I am no trying to disprove your point, you have a great point. However we still live in a racist society that sees things from the eyes of Whites.
And according to history, Whites aren’t the good guys. I am going by history for this answer.
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I don’t really see that “we do this now”. We are discussing the issue now among certain small isolated parties, but not really doing that much. Certainly there is no widespread public outrage.
I suppose Loewen did something when he took the Mississippi Board of Education to court in 1980. But it was about his own textbook. We should be seeing such activity on a regular basis, until it would be shameful for any school district to consider requiring students to read deceitful history, or for students to be denied access to learning history, esp. the one dealing with where they grew up or their immediate ancestors.
Are there “whitewash” alert advocacy groups who are monitoring school boards?
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Whitewashed history proceeds apace in America:
2012: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/hb-2281-arizonas-law-to-ban-ethnic-studies/
2010: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/what-can-be-taught-as-history-in-texas/
2007: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/james-w-loewen-lies-my-teacher-told-me/
I was not taught at school who, say, Medgar Evers was. Neither are my sons a generation later.
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Are white people the good guys of history?
They certainly write themselves to be.
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Adeen, you are in high school now. I have been removed from high school for decades. Maybe you can tell me what you are learning about:
– the original native peoples who inhabit the area you are now living in (or does history only start when Europeans settled your area)? Who were they, what happened to them, and what do we know about their language, history and culture?). Is the term “genocide” every used?
– history of anti-miscegenation laws in the USA (dating back to the 17th century), and despite those laws, how did so much interchange of DNA occur between them (such that there are more white descendants of slaves living today than black descendants of slaves)
– Lewis and Clark – Hero? (they helped to pave the way to establish the USA’s white America “Manifest Destiny” policy)
– Andrew Jackson – Hero? (noted for pushing through the Indian removal policy)
– Seminole war (why is it called a war?)
– how the prison system is still accomplishing the goals of Jim Crow, slave labour, and voter disenfranchisement
– the state of Idaho used to be 1/3 Chinese in the late 19th century, but now it is less than 0.3%. The current numerical population today is only about 1/4 about what it was in 1885. What happened?
– John Brown – Hero or villain?
– Are you taught about W.E.B. Dubois and Malcolm X, or did they just cherry pick factoids about MLK, Jr. and Booker T. Washington (which is supposed to make white people feel good)? Are Dubois and Malcolm X heroes or villains?
– Were the racist ideology of ex-presidents such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln also presented alongside their “heroic deeds”?
– Why is the US invading countries half way around the world? Any other country doing that? What makes the USA different?
– Should it be constitutional for the USA to target law-abiding citizens, remove their possessions and intern them behind barbed wire in remote locations? The Supreme Court ruled that it is constitutional.
Just wondering. I can only remember what I had to go and find out about OUTSIDE of school.
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@ Jeffe
Good question.
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Jefe, the “we do this now” was in reference to requiring students to learn something other than white american history.
They teach African-American history. It is not very comprehensive, but they do it.
Adeen, I’m not disputing any of those things. Just that requiring them to teach something other than white american history is not a solution, since it’s already being done. The solution would be doing it better.
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Who decides what this is? I am sure what little is being taught has been cherry picked. What is more disturbing is what is NOT being taught and what has been excluded from the curriculum.
For example, I have never seen a textbook in the USA which discusses at length about the native population of the relevant area prior to European settlement and what happened to them. If knowledge about them is scanty, then why is that? I learned NOTHING about the native inhabitants of the area where I grew up.
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OK, Solesearch, tell me
– is African American history taught as though it is also an integral part of white American history (ie, not about “their” history) and also from a non-white point of view?
– what they teach about Asian American history (basically nothing, I’m sure). Again, is it taught as something that is part of all Americans, or something about “them” only?
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@Jefe
I agree I grew up in Chicago and not once did we ever learn anything about the city before the fire. I couldn’t have told you the name of the Native Americans who populated the area before. I vaguely knew that Chicago is a Native word. Asian history was never even a footnote in our history classes.
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Exactly.
I was born in DC and spent my early childhood in the Anacostia neighborhood in DC. There are so many things named after Anacostia there, not to mention the Anacostia river, but I NEVER learned about the Nacochtank (from whence the name was coined), the aboriginal inhabitants of what is now Washington, DC until very recently. They were basically wiped out by 1668.
And I grew up in southern Prince George’s County, MD. I knew of Piscataway Road, Piscataway Creek, etc., but I never knew that they were named after the people who lived in the general area of Southern Maryland between the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. Gee, I scarcely knew that the words “Potomac” and “Chesapeake” were of Algonquian origin. The history of where I grew up basically only started when John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln.
By the time I was about 14-15, I knew something was a bit screwy. I wanted to learn what happened to the Piscataway Indians. I started to question whether the Founding Fathers were really “my history”. I realized that I had to learn about history on my own — not the meaningless boring stuff pushed in school.
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@Abagond
But thats like I said before; while we may overstate our position in things on the other hand we do teach about slaver, jim crow, bombing german civilians etc…..we do just like the Japanese and Germans and teach about our evils.
That being said; don’t the Japanese down play Pearl Harbor in their teachings?
I remember a foreign exchange student in my high school being pretty surprised at the actual level of attack that Pearl Harbor was.
So presuming he wasn’t just a somewhat oblivious student, that seemed to imply his teachers at least taught from a bias as well.
Jews:
Jews also have the “minority” benefit that gets brought up in debates on this blog from time to time, you can’t be a public figure and say anything bad about Jews or you end up looking anti-semetic, racist, xenophobic etc…..
Its not “PC”
@Jefe
Part of the reason we don’t know much about the natives is simply because a lot of them didn’t have any kind of written history (I think), the other reason is even when they did we destroyed it (and every other aspect of the culture) anyways.
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^ You are guessing why we don’t have that history. Those might be partial explanations, but that is not really my main point.
We should have history about what happened to them when the European people arrived – were they driven away, were there wars? We don’t even have history taught about what the European descendants did that caused them to be GONE now.
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@Jefe
It varies; we had conflicts with some; got along well enough with others, wiped out 90% of them with disease alone.
But by and large; even the ones we got along with we screwed over one way or another.
That aside; your right I remember being taught somewhat about the Powhatans but not a whole lot and all the other groups don’t even really get a mention aside from the Custer incident; well maybe they do now but they didn’t when I went to school.
There’s a general overview of Natives as a whole and a few incidents but nothing really indepth about the interactions between the Natives and the Colonizers.
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@Jefe
Thanks for your response and honestly much of the stuff you listed was not taught to me in my schools such as miscegenation laws regarding interracial marriage, Thomas Jefferson’s racist idealogy alongside their fight for revolution from Britain, and I was taught little facts about Booker T Washington, WEB Du Bois but they never really spoke about them much. My History books talks about Europeans history more than Native American history. I can go on and on but it will take up most of this page.
Sorry if I came off as ignorant and I wish I knew more facts about the history of my country considering that I am an American citizen.
@Solesearch
You are correct but how can we better teach history to American students. I am almost in my last year of high school and honestly, I hardly know half the history of my country! What methods would you suggest to better teach American students especially Black students about American history?
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I learned that too, and I was educated using US History textbooks. Didn’t you even think to question that at all, the validity of such a simplistic explanation?
And, I also notice the use of the word “we”. Who are you referring to by using that word? I personally never felt comfortable saying it was what “we” did to “them”. I always think of it as what they did to them (but in a larger since, I do think of “we”, but “we” includes both sides, ie, what we did to ourselves).
Seriously, I think there were conflicts with all of them to some extent or another. Which one do you think “we” got along well with (that was not totally shortlived)? (And while I might suspect a large number (but definitely not 90%) succumbed to diseases from Europeans, do you not question why it was prevalent in Central North America, but not as much in other parts of the Americas? I have also read that once European descendant settlers learned that some Native Americans were more susceptible to diseases than whites, they devised ways to infect them on purpose.
They are a little more PC nowadays than they were in the 1950s (I remember reading about the Seminole wars in a 1950s book – utterly AGHAST), but they still omit huge chunks of history, and what they do include is only from one point of view. A lot of it is just false myth (eg, the sale of Manhattan to the Dutch).
And how much do you know about the Native population of the area where you grew up? What happened to the Delaware tribe (native to the Delaware River region), for example? Were you even curious why it was not taught in school and did you make an effort to learn about it?
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@Adeen,
I’m not picking on you — it is just that I am decades removed from High School, so I don’t know what it going on nowadays. I am happy that you can enlighten me and the rest of us about what is being taught in school. At least Abagond has teenage sons that are attending History and Civics class in school.
– So NO mention of anti-miscegenation in the USA? I guess 46 years is now ancient history (on June 12, no less). It is VERY relevant esp. in light of the current debate on same sex marriage. And it is also important that South Carolina and Alabama kept the law on their books until 1999 and 2000 respectively.
– How do you learn about the stuff that is not taught in school? Are you curious to find out what happened? As I mentioned, it “clicked” to me that something was terribly wrong by the time I was 14-15. But alas, the USA is not the only place that does this.
Anyhow, reading Abagond’s blog will at least enlighten you that a whole chunk of history has been omitted or revised for public consumption.
I hope if you go to university, you will be interested to learn more about the history that was NOT taught in primary and secondary school. It can be quite amazing.
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@Jefe,
Yea–if the students are reading Holes and If You Come Softly in their literature classes…other than that i highly doubt it.
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@V-4
White Americans are the ones who least deal with their historical wrong doings. Most attempts to engage in a mature dialog about the past and recent historical wrongs of White Americans (I say recent because 1964 was not that long ago) are met with apathy and dismissive remarks.
Blacks are told to “get over it” because “it’s in the past.” We are told to not keep holding the past against White America, even though White America won’t move on from enforcing White privilege, they refuse to offer a formal apology and the rest they choose to downplay or outright deny.
German Whites openly admit to the evils of Hitler, even though those came to an end twenty years before the Civil Rights Movement of America had its true breakthrough in 1964. Germans don’t allow people to display the swastika, do Nazi salutes or otherwise engage in any of that kind of activity that invokes that era of their history. They are ashamed of what they did, and rightfully so. However, they don’t hide from it.
On the other hand, Whites in America still fly the REBEL flag, which baffles me, because it symbolize racist tyranny, yet the same people who display it are often quick to say “I’m not a racist, this is just my proud heritage as a southerner.” The Ku Klux Klan can still conduct public hate rallies, with masks on to protect their identities. There is little going on to suggest that White Americans face their wrongs with any sort of humility or acceptance.
I’ll admit that minorities in this country do make a concerted effort to get White America to recognize their wrong doings, but that has mostly been an experience akin to talking to a child with their fingers in their ears going “la la la la la I can’t hear you la la la la la.”
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Adeen, I think the teaching of the civil rights movement should be just as comprehensive as the teaching of the american presidents and the founding fathers.
It should be required children learn about all of the civil rights leaders. These people did a lot more than the “founding fathers” in making America live up to it’s ideals and it should be taught that way.
It should be required that Literature classes read black authors. In my high school, which was 50% black, we didn’t read one book by a black author, but we read the diary of anne frank.
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@solesearch
Just wondering, when you were in high school, did you suspect something was amiss?
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Jefe, yes. I hated my high school. I remember arguing with my U.S. History teacher who was teaching our class that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. It was about states’ rights.
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Loewen exposed that fallacy.
The opposite was true. The southerners opposed States rights, as the northerners did let them bring their slaves up north & treat them as slaves. They were upset that New Hampshire & New York had the right to ban slavery.
He found out 60-70% of High School history teachers got it completely wrong.
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sorry
, as the northerners did NOT let them bring their slaves up north & treat them as slaves
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I have started to marvel at the white incapacity for self-reflection as well. It’s not just moral blindness but historical blindness also.
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Jefe, I also knew something was amiss when they turned Black History Month into Reading Pays Month. I’m down with reading, but couldn’t they pick another month.
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@ King of Trouble: Hey, Brother good too see you. I’m glad you’re back.
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Solesearch
I agree with you 100% on this one. I do believe people should read books by Black authors too but in my school, we still read Anne Frank and books by Caucasians.
@Jefe
I know you aren’t picking on me lol but I do look forward to learning more about American history when I go off to university next year.
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@Lwanda Magere
So in school you never learned about slavery, the native genocides, segregation or jim crow? I didn’t say white people of today feel particularly guilty or bad about what happened (though it doesn’t help that most people see anything over 20yrs ago as ancient history) but as a whole they also don’t deny it happened.
And while racism is still around there are efforts made to try and minimise its effects, affirmative action and what have you. Attempts are made to lessen the effects of white privilege.
As for the rebel flag; that person is just a racist without the guts or self-awareness to admit it. If it ever comes up again you should ask them just what “exactly” are they proud of. That and there isn’t exactly a “shared” southern heritage, aside from fighting to keep slavery around.
@Jefe
Honestly as a kid I was a slacker burnout, I’m not exactly leagues away from that now, but I was pretty far and away interested in learning.
I didn’t learn anything about how my state specifically treated natives until I went to college and took Arkansas history.
How they treated them basically went like this pre-“civilized” era they got along with them about as well they did anyone else, married etc….which isn’t to say they treated them “well” or great but that they treated them as good or bad as they did everybody.
It didn’t really start going badly for the Indians until Arkansas got “civilized”, criminals, roughnecks and whathave you didn’t screw them over as massively as the good christian folk did. Some irony there, effectively at that point they pretty much had the government take there land and keep moving them around so they didn’t have to deal with them.
Also; Natives were pretty well colonized by that point, at least in Arkansas and probably way more than you see in most westerns.
To me it made it that much worse, it doesn’t justify it but xenophobia at least can work as some kind of explainnation, when they speak like you, dress like you and act like you but you still screw them over massively, at that point you got nothing to justify your bigotry and hatred or just plain amorality at a willingness to take advantage of those weaker than you.
Also your right; the South wasn’t really pro-states rights, after all they started the war because they were afraid other states would choose “not” to have slaves. That and of course the mentions of slavery as being the reason for what they do and what seperates them from every other nation on earth by multiple states entering into the confederacy and both the Vice-President and President of the confederacy.
That and of course; can you think of a single time that “State’s Rights” hasn’t been about screwing over minorities whether that be slavery or the little rock 9?
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@ Jefe
I knew before High School when in 5th grade my all white classmates asked me what have black people ever done in History. It put a fire under me because till that point on vaguely knew. After that point when I walked into a history class I could see my teachers sweat. Although I had to hunt down my history knowledge and it wasn’t easy.
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There is good and bad in all of us. Temptation to do evil is always going to be there.
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I wonder how many Americans come to the realization that there is something wrong with the way history is taught to them and when that realization happens.
Then I wonder how many do something about it.
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@ Mary Burrell, Well I am now a Wisconsinite and unemployed at this time so I have a little time. I am glad to hear from you. Now if I can only find a job I’d be 100 times happier in general with life. I hate not working, but that might be because a black man not working has eyes on him, as my relatives use to say.
@ Jefe most people know there is something wrong. Teaching history you can see it in their eyes. However, I always had far more parents worried about non-traditional teaching. I draw the line at having to say Andrew Jackson was a good guy. That Teddy Roosevelt was strong and didn’t buckle under pressure. I don’t go talking about right after the supposedly friendship meal of thanksgiving. We all love fence building and telling people this land is mine don’t come here anymore.
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@KOT
Just wondering how you handle Andrew Jackson when you do your teaching, esp. how you handle the dichotomy between how the textbooks you use depict him and how you view him. Have you seen his statue in front of the White House in Lafayette Square? Are there any other highly prominent statues of him besides that one and the one in New Orleans?
I remember hearing about Manifest Destiny when I was in school, but it was always presented as a good thing.
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[…] Are White Americans the good guys of history? […]
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“White Americans are a mix of good and evil.”
Everyone thinks of themselves as “good”. That means “evil” is a subjective term applied to others we don’t like or agree with.
Most white Americans are not driven by thoughts of “good” or “evil” but rather are “driven chiefly by self-interest, and they use morals and fine words to dress up their sins.” Just like everybody else.
As with every other “groups” or “tribe” of humans the prudent thing to do is determine where you stand in relation to them. Is it in their self-interest to negotiate, compromise, cooperate with, enslave, or hide from you? And then act accordingly, for the good of yourself, your family and your people. This is especially important if you live among them and not say, across an ocean from them. For instance, many white Americans will lock their car doors while driving through a predominantly black area of the City. They assume it is in black folks self-interest to hurt them. Maybe not individually, but in aggregate. Does that mean that many white Americans believe that black Americans are “evil” ; maybe not individually, but in aggregate? It often seems so doesn’t it. And its not true.
Of course, sinning is a Christian idea. Most people, like Hemingway operate by a simple moral code,”what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.” And morals are not immutable, they change. For hundreds of years most Europeans thought slavery was okay or at least not worth arguing about. That changed, it became bad, and the people that practiced it, at least according to John Brown, became “evil”.
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https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/the-wire-season-4/#comment-240919
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There is not one thing good to say about white history murderer,liar, thief,two faced,criminals where is the Good they`ve done.NAME ONE THING JUST ONE.
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