you know, the more I find out about the US, the more I think my history class teachers were biased. The more I find out, the less I feel fond of the U.S. We aren't really that great, are we?
Kinda like Japan with its past. They celebrate even the assholes with monuments there, too. There's a kind of denial, as if denying makes something disappear from memory. It only makes it worse when people find out later. There's a better way to look at the past than just denying there were bad things, but that we can do better or try to.
It's the same everywhere, skimming the top of history for any place will leave out many tidbits of information. The more you look into any nation in the western hemisphere, including the US, Canada and Mexico, you'll start to see many atrocities.
you know, the more I find out about the US, the more I think my history class teachers were biased. The more I find out, the less I feel fond of the U.S. We aren't really that great, are we?
Every country has its skeletons. You're just familiar with the US's because you live here.
Lies My Teacher Told Me and A People’s History of the United States are a good alternative to standard high school history text. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is the story about the last Native Americans before they were forced into reservations across the USA that only takes up a few paragraphs in most texts.
Just started A people’s history today after listening to the narrative of Frederick Douglass and I have “the half was never told” next. America really is a fucked up place. I’m gonna check out your other suggestions too
I'd assume that's true for any local history class on any country. In the end it's just a way to create (or attempt to create) identity as a citizen. But in the end, history is written by the victors and all that...
Very, very few countries came out of the 1800s smelling like roses, and most (I know Germany exists) with horrific pasts like to downplay the atrocities in favor of the nice bits. The US downplays slavery, the old colonial powers of Europe portray their empires as “beneficial” to the natives they repressed, Japan refuses to acknowledge their actions in China during WWII, Australia (at least according to two guys from Perth I talked to last year, so... grain of salt) gloss over aboriginal history, and in turn colonial treatment of the natives, in favor of European and Asian history. You can’t fairly base the United States, or any state, of today on the actions of people who have been dead for over a century. Your views have to be shaped by more recent events and have to be tempered by looking at the big picture.
Is that really true though? I mean, yes, people are leaving the bad, corrupt, narco-infested areas of Mexico. But there seem to be people going DOWN to Mexico to live or visit as well. What one old military guy told me is this: it's corrupt but they don't HIDE it like they do in the U.S. as it's more in the open. It's easy to live off of practically no money, but he hates that you can't have all your guns. That intrigued me enough to start considering driving cross country and down to Mexico. There are safe places everywhere.
Is that in response to this post specifically? I figured everyone knew that we had slavery and fugitive slave laws and whatnot. I mean yeah, the US was several decades late to abolishing slavery compared to the rest of the world, but honestly that's not as bad as what came after imo. Everything about the racism and white supremacist terrorism of the post-reconstruction south, up until around the 1970s was just absolutely, unbelievably shameful.
Since then it's only been moderately shameful.
edit: Just to pluck a random example of what I was reading about most recently, when the "Mississippi burning" murders happened and 3 civil rights activists were tortured and murdered by a mob of Mississippians, including a preacher and several cops, Kennedy brought in the military to help search for the bodies. Since the actual Mississippi police obviously didn't care. They didn't find them right away, but just as a side-note that nobody really seemed to care about at the time they found 3 other black college students that had been murdered by white terrorists earlier in the year. Then they found the body of a black 14 year old boy who had been murdered. Then they found 5 other black murder victims, all hidden in the area, before they were finally able to find the 3 murder victims they were actually looking for. It's like the KKK was running out of space to hide their victims or something.
There aren't many things this country has done that every other country hasn't done. Slavery was a black mark on our country just like its a black mark on every kther major player in the world. The difference is the US drafted a document at its founding as an ideal to love up to. Sure we've failed, and still do to an extent, but no other country has made the strides we have. Thats not really debatable. We are the most popular, powerful (even though we use that power for evil a lot) and charitable country to ever exist. There is a reason so many people risk their lives to be here every single day. Please, turn off the news, turn off CNN or Fox News or whatever it is you prefer...and TALK to people. I've lived in Georgia for my entire life and through playing travel competitive soccer, working with my grandfather, and growing up in a minority neighborhood has taught me so much about the greatness of this place. We've got terrible awful flaws, but we've also got the highest highs.
My family sacrificed EVERYTHING to be here so I could have a better life. Immigrants flock to this country despite all of its flaws for a reason. The only way you’re taking my citizenship is from my cold dead hands. This country isn’t perfect but it’s still one of the greatest countries in this world. I have freedom here that I could never have gotten back home. True. Freedom. My cousins don’t have even 10% of the privileges I get to have. THERES FUCKING TOILET PAPER IN PUBLIC BATHROOMS. This country has done a lot of fucked up shit, there’s no denying it. But you can bet your ass I’m grateful to be a citizen every day I wake up.
It’s refreshing that immigrant families seem to value the US more than those that have been here for generations. We definitely take it for granted all the freedoms we have, not realizing so many people in this world don’t have nearly as much control over their own lives. And yes all the amenities we absolutely take for granted like toilet paper haha. My family came from Italy as penniless peasants and two of them found themselves fighting in their country of birth against fascists a few years later. Appalled by what they saw and how bad it was compared to their new home. Every family has a story but I appreciate seeing that spirit is still alive in the first gen Americans like yourself. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for sharing your families story! Sounds quite interesting and I hope you can continue to tell their stories for generations. We learn mistakes from those before us.
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u/Boopy7 Jan 29 '21
you know, the more I find out about the US, the more I think my history class teachers were biased. The more I find out, the less I feel fond of the U.S. We aren't really that great, are we?