r/WhitePeopleTwitter • u/Dry-Explanation9566 • Mar 22 '23
American History is DARK AF but it must be taught
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u/SPARKYLOBO Mar 22 '23
Residential schools are Canada's shame, too. And some people are trying to deny it as well.
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u/xXNyanCatXx1234qwert Mar 22 '23
While obviously my experience isn't universal, it was definitely taught in my Catholic Canadian High School, and they did not pull many punches.
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u/lLeggy Mar 22 '23
In my public school for social studies I remember talking about the Catholic churches involvement with native American children. This would've been early 2000s grade 5 or 6. I feel like I was pretty educated on how fucked up it was, maybe it was just my teacher.
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u/shabio1 Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
In my public schools, 2000-2010s, I was definitely taught it in the context of being a genocide.
While it doesn't make anything okay, I'm glad our country is at least slowly making the steps toward recognition and reconciliation of the whole situation.
That said, there's certainly still a lot of people willfully ignoring this, especially older generations who weren't taught it in this context, or not taught it at all.
It's also interesting to parallel it with the US, I feel like I hear next to nothing surrounding indigenous issues from there, while they're a major topic here.
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u/GenericFatGuy Mar 22 '23
I remember being taught about them, and I remember them being taught as a thing that was terrible and unacceptable. But they were also framed to us as something that was in the past, that we didn't need to think about anymore. Which is obviously ridiculous when you consider that the closure of the last one wasn't even 30 years ago. The atrocities are still very much in our current history.
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u/xXNyanCatXx1234qwert Mar 22 '23
Yeah while I don't think it was emphasized in the textbook, our teacher told us that the last residential school closed in the late 90's, and really made sure to emphasize that the effects of that system will impact Canadian First Nation's people for generations. I feel lucky to have someone who was passionate and knowledgeable about the topic teaching me
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u/ladyalot Mar 22 '23
I learned about it from the news, of all places, as a kid. Even as Métis living in SK, my family really didn't wanna be seen that way for a few generations so I barely learned anything of our history from them. Once I learned it, it came up more and more.
There were Native Studies classes in highschool, but I never took that class so I can't say how much public schools taught in the 2000s-2010s. Glad to see others learned in school.
Generally I learned everything I knew about any Indigenous group, the bands I live near, or my own people from extracurriculars like girl guides, museum trips, heritage days, stories and footage from pow wows (I never got to go sadly), and family friends who'd come over for dinner, or rarely do ceremony.
I didn't think it had anything to do with me until I was like 12 and realized "oops this has everything to do with me and the place I live".
After that I started to realize Canadian "culture" was just like...capitalism with hockey, and that empty feeling I got about it was because I didn't know where I was from.
Residential schools are deeply a part of our history, we feel it to this day, people from the schools live today. We know them and learn from them and get hurt by them and are loved by them.
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u/jmenendeziii Mar 22 '23
I went to public school and we def learned about all of that, the history department at my school had a bunch of relics that were used to reinforce what was being read about in our textbooks. When we were learning about pre civil-war south, my APUSH teacher brought in a set of chains that he let anyone wear if they wanted to (only if they wanted to) and I remember putting them on and being shook with how heavy they were. Makes learning about the chain gangs more impactful cuz there’s more room to build empathy. Also had a bunch of WW2 memorabilia that the principles dad brought back from Europe when he served. There was a big storage container in the history dept office that had all of it in there.
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u/RaZ-RemiiX Mar 22 '23
Same experience when I was in APUSH in Texas about 8 years ago, my teacher didn't bring in any relics like yours but we definitely covered many dark periods in American history.
It wasn't called the Trail of Tears because they were crying tears of joy....
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u/texasrigger Mar 22 '23
One of my history teachers was a "buckskinner" with a particular interest in the TX revolutionary era and had quite a few historical pieces and replicas that she would bring in for historical context.
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u/Fatal-Fetus Mar 22 '23
I was taught about the horror of the boarding schools in the 90's. Did most schools not teach this?
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u/ChloeAR2017 Mar 22 '23
Graduated high school in Missouri in the late 2010s and this was skipped over
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u/EmRaff7 Mar 22 '23
Same here, I think we briefly covered the trail of tears as a “forced resettlement” but skipped everything else (i went to a conservative christian school so maybe the public school was better)
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u/helgothjb Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
In Colorado, we didn't learn much other than the Goldrush, turbuclocis towns, Pikes Peak, and the rich people who came to make the Paris of the West. I didn't learn about the horrible treatment of Native Americans until I read Centennial. We didn't learn about the Ludlow Massacre of the minors in the early 1900s souther Colorado either. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
Thankfully, we are very close to changing the name of Mt. Evans, named after Colorado's despicable governor who was largely responsible for the Sand Creek Massacre.
Edited - added the link to the Ludlow Massacre.
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u/puss_parkerswidow Mar 22 '23
I graduated HS in Texas in 1988 and was never taught about this
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u/Dogmeat241 Mar 22 '23
Grade 12 here, never learned anything related to it until I was in grade 7 or 8, which is pretty far into education considering how much we learn about other countries beforehand
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u/Daherrin7 Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
Most countries have a dark history at different stages, then again most countries teach these dark histories in the hopes they are not repeated. American conservative politicians seem to worry if their society is able to learn from history they won't be able to keep using the same playbook they have been for so long
Edit: Okay, I was not expecting this comment to blow up. There’s too many people for me to reply to everyone so I’ll just do a general response as an edit. When the history is taught it is often a sugarcoated version to make it seem as though it wasn't that bad. British colonization as an example has often been spoken of as good for all involved when the truth people learn when looking into it appears very different. That being part of the point, education doesn't have to end with school. The other part of the point being without learning anything about it at all in school people may have a harder time knowing what to look for to learn or may not believe the facts because why wouldn't they teach it in school if it's true, and there are currently politicians trying to put an end to learning certain parts of history
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u/splitdiopter Mar 22 '23
I honestly think the conservative PACs don’t really care about the content of the issues they push. They’ll say anything. Real or imagined. It’s just a tactic to drive a wedge between voters and create single issue voting bodies that they can control. Guaranteed districts are good districts. At any cost.
If rural MAGA voters suddenly wanted gun control and native rights, FOX would flip in an instant.
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u/NMS_Survival_Guru Mar 22 '23
If I had time I'd go through some right wing radio broadcasts because a similar situation happened in my state
Republicans were all for the Dakota Access pipeline praising its use of eminent domain because it'll lower fuel prices and increase oil supply
Now they want to build a Carbon Capture Pipeline (just for moving ethanol) and now those same radio hosts are saying eminent domain shouldn't be used to build for profit companies infrastructure
Both metal tubes in the ground but somehow it's OK to force people to accept one pipeline but not the other based solely on the content it's transporting
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u/tinkerghost Mar 22 '23
The bizarre thing is, of the 2, ethanol leaks are essentially harmless. A week or 2 and it's evaporated and the ground is being recolonized by new bacteria and insects. Oil leaks are more or less permanent.
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u/reconditered Mar 22 '23
They also have to have a platform that requires no economic changes. Conservatives want to keep people poor, keep wages stagnant, and keep all of society's wealth with the wealthiest. And while Democrats haven't done much to alleviate the wealth gap in the US, the progressive block of voters in the Democratic base has done a good job of moving the party in the direction of economic reform. After all, a lot of states are voting to raise the minimum wage. That's the result of progressive activism. Conservatives would rather have their voters focus on showing up with guns to drag shows than to ask for better wages and working conditions.
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u/splitdiopter Mar 22 '23
Conservatives would rather have their voters focus on showing up with guns to drag shows than to ask for better wages and working conditions.
That’s it right there isn’t it. They create nonsense wedge issues to stay in power so they can legislate the US into an oligarchy of corporate interests. They don’t care what the nonsense issues are, as long as they work, and allow them to keep passing the economic agenda they want.
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u/Daherrin7 Mar 22 '23
You are correct. However, seeming to give people on one side what they want and want to hear while stripping rights from others is part of the playbook
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Mar 22 '23
then again most countries teach these dark histories in the hopes they are not repeated.
Most countries do NOT teach their dark histories. Where did you get that idea from?
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u/snp3rk Mar 22 '23
From years of "America bad"
I swear most people on Reddit have never traveled to other countries, are extremely naive, or just heavily influenced by foreign agents into buying so much propaganda.
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u/FiendishHawk Mar 22 '23
Most countries do not teach the dark parts of their history. I’m from the UK originally and how much do you think we learned about the British Empire? Nothing!
Only Germany teaches the dark parts of their history because they have been forced to grapple with their Nazism for fear it happens again.
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u/peon2 Mar 22 '23
Japan teaching WWII: Yeah, some German guys did some stuff and that was it, uhh what no we didn't commit equally horrific war crimes and tortured people..
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u/What_a_pass_by_Jokic Mar 22 '23
Same for the Dutch (where I went to school, after 2 years of elementary here in the US), though we did touch up on the role in slavery in high school. But most of the stuff comes from my grandparents, who were born in one of the Dutch colonies.
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u/Aegi Mar 22 '23
To be fair, from my experience as a kid who was a nerd and actually paid attention in school and loved it, a lot of things people say that we are not taught, we actually were taught, they were just idiots, didn't pay attention, forgot, or something else even if it literally was in the curriculum.
I've literally been at the bar kind of reuniting with people from back in high school, and one of them talked about how we never learned something in class, but I was literally in the same classes them and even had to bring up a story where I was arguing with the teacher about it to show them that we did in fact learn about it, they just either like hopping on the bandwagon, or have a shit memory, or something else.
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u/Crafty-Recover-1270 Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
From Brazil, I was lucky to learn about slavery in school while 9 years, they also teached about the vaccine revolt of 1904 while making sure to say the military was invading homes to vaccinate people, and Paraguay's war, while we fought on self-defense, we actualy did some pretty bad stuff, and they told us that. And besides all that, I still love my country for what he is and what it can be in the future.
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u/jamieh800 Mar 22 '23
Idk, man. Every English person I've ever met totally downplays every single bad aspect of the British Empire.
Japan still sorta refuses to acknowledge the rape of Nanking.
I agree, though. Does it suck to know your historical heroes or your city's founder or your country as a whole has done monstrous, wretched thing? Yes. It sucked way more for the victims of those monstrous things. If you don't want to be the monster, you have to understand the errors of the past, so you can understand why certain groups find some words or actions offensive in your country when they may mot in others, why some groups always seem to be crying out against an injustice that you may not see, how you can help those groups and how you can help heal those old wounds. Not in a "I'm white and here to help" way, but in a genuine, human way.
Denying the truth, or trying to shift the blame, or anything other than accepting your past and being determined not to repeat it is no way to have pride in your country, or to be a patriot. The best way to support and love your country is to try to make it better.
Plus, how did that one song go? "You've got to know the truth before you say that you have pride"
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u/deathandtaxes1617 Mar 22 '23
then again most countries teach these dark histories in the hopes they are not repeated
But do they though? I mean outside of Germany whose atrocities were central to the largest event of the 19th century and thus borderline impossible to skip over do "most" countries really teach these?
Japan certainly doesn't. Belgium doesn't. Germany doesn't teach much at all for their part in the Rwandan genocide to my knowledge. The avg Brits knowledge of their colonial horrors is shameful. Russia is currently in the act of committing atrocities and pretending it's totally justified. White South Africans are masters of whataboutism. I could go on and on.
Sadly, imo, the GOP standard response of glossing over the dark parts of history in favor of rose tinted views of history is just that..the standard.
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u/Mdgt_Pope Mar 22 '23
1923 is trying to make up for that
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u/pixeltip Mar 22 '23
That was really hard to watch. If it was anything like that I can’t even process it.
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u/intensenerd Mar 22 '23
I grew up in Idaho late 1900’s and was never taught about those schools. I watched 1923 recently and it led me down a huge research rabbit hole that revealed a ton about those schools. Makes me so sick. Religion ruins so much.
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u/DisownedByMother Mar 22 '23
EVERY country has unbelievable dark spots in their history. All of it should be taught.
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Mar 22 '23
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u/PM_ME_LIMERICKS Mar 22 '23
The first time I met my biological father, he told me that I have a decent amount of Cherokee blood in me, because "They were slow runners." which he said while chuckling. It took me years of looking back to understand what he meant. Disgusting.
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u/WhoFearsDeath Mar 22 '23
While he is right about this, “Lakota Man” is super problematic and a joke in most Native circles.
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u/zzorga Mar 22 '23
It's amazing that in this entire post, only two people seem to know this.
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u/WhoFearsDeath Mar 22 '23
I mean, it is white people twitter, and that’s exactly his demographic that he’s pandering to. I don’t blame them, just him.
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u/WendysNumber6 Mar 22 '23
75% of Reddit seems to think the genocide of natives ended in like 1890 in the "old west" so is it really any surprise none of them know about a problematic current figure?
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u/OK_Human Mar 22 '23
Great point. This post has more on this: https://ntvtwt.com/2022/07/07/lakotaman1-fake-native-or-fake-lakota/
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u/CementCemetery Mar 22 '23
I have heard this once or twice before. I think part of the problem is people aren’t exposed to (proper) Native voices in most communities. If you - or anyone else - know of some people to check out I would be happy to.
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u/RecklessRecognition Mar 22 '23
I probably wouldnt have been taught this as im australian.
But i do know about our history, the stolen generation, the slaughter
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u/FlipAround42 Mar 22 '23
Unfortunately, theres a lot that’s not taught in schools.
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Mar 22 '23
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u/BitchfulThinking Mar 22 '23
Same. I taught myself origami during Mass, but I've spent my adulthood playing catch up. I did come to realize that Jesus would have been a leftist, and stating that infuriates so many people :)
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Mar 22 '23
They only have so much time. I think the US does a pretty good job of teaching the big stuff, good and bad. At least in my state.
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u/J_Dabson002 Mar 22 '23
What kind of schools did everyone go to…?
I went to school in Texas and was taught all of this. Pretty much every year of history class from 5th grade on was 50% genocides and atrocities.
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u/AnAimlessWanderer101 Mar 22 '23
Same. A ton of these threads always confuse me. I’m also Deep South and spent large large amounts of time on all of these atrocities. At some point there’s only so much time in class, and a lot of history to cover. Did I see every single picture and learn of every single event… no. Did they cover the themes of complete brutality and injustices committed - yes.
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u/Aegi Mar 22 '23
Dude, I'd be willing to bet my entire life savings that most of these people were technically taught that material, they were just students that had less than a 95% average and therefore they were probably just shitty students that didn't learn or remember or pay attention to what was being taught.
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u/GilBrandt Mar 22 '23
This is what I wonder too. Also went to a public Texas school and learned about all the terrible things America has done. I'm sure there are schools/teachers that don't teach this, but I assume more American schools teach the atrocities than reddit would like to believe
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u/setocsheir Mar 22 '23
Reddit has a ton of Europeans and self-hating Americans who will just blatantly lie about America for fake internet points
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u/Redipus_Ex Mar 22 '23
They poured gasoline on my Native American Grandma's head and shaved it to "kill lice and ticks" when she arrived at the boarding school, where she and her classmates were severely beaten, every time they spoke their native tongue. This is how they killed most of the languages. Even when she was well into her old age, she only spoke Tsimpsean in hushed tones, and only with a few old friends who were forced to go through the same thing. Add to that, the genocidal damage caused by all the religious brainwashing, as it continues to insidiously resonate to this day. That's how they did their best, to murder the culture. I am 37 years old.
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u/bignuts24 Mar 22 '23
They did this shit in Canada too. They murdered the children too.
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u/Dry-Explanation9566 Mar 22 '23
... and Australia
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u/puss_parkerswidow Mar 22 '23
I saw the movie Rabbit Proof Fence and learned about that, but only because I like movies, not because any of it was taught in school in the USA
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u/Scorpion1024 Mar 22 '23
The Salem witch trials weren’t really hysteria over the supernatural. The community of Salem was full of people with vendettas who decided to weaponize trials against their neighbors. Also, the earliest innovations in the space program were owed to Nazis who were granted pardons in exchange for their expertise.
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u/gapball Mar 22 '23
I learned all of this and native American genocide in public school and I'm in my 30s.
Where did you all go to school????
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Mar 22 '23
There are some genuinely terrible schools but people saying that nobody is being taught this is not correct. I didn't learn specifically about this but the atrocities against the native americans was very much part of what we were taught
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u/Aegi Mar 22 '23
Also, why the hell is nobody talking about the fact that some students are just shitty students and didn't pay attention and that does not justify them 20 years later pretending that they were never taught the material in class when they were actually just shitty students that never paid attention.
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u/Hot-Bint Mar 22 '23
Hell I didn’t know about the cuffs. I do know about the Trail of Tears and that genocidal MFer Jackson but that was high school. Before that it was pilgrims, happy turkeys and corn, or what the Indians called “maiiiizzzze” and it was all grand. I shudder to think what the Republicans are going to teach.
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u/PregnantBugaloo Mar 22 '23
All history is full of darkness and the more we pretend otherwise the darker our future will be.
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u/dognamedfrank Mar 22 '23
What the US government did to the Native Americans was genocide. We need to call it what it was.
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u/scrububle Mar 22 '23
We already do?
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u/FilliusTExplodio Mar 22 '23
We definitely do. I went to elementary and high school literally decades ago and they taught it as genocide.
I imagine some regions vary.
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u/Altaira99 Mar 22 '23
TBF all of human history reeks. We can do better, but only if we know better.
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u/Reading_Rainboner Mar 22 '23
Nope it’s only Americans! Always has been ever since the Dawn of humanity!!!!.!!
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u/Steakfrie Mar 22 '23
Leave it to *good* christians to find a need for such a specialty item.
Today, they have the modern convenience of duct tape to restrain and terrorize kids (see recent Reddit post).
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u/neonlace Mar 22 '23
Adding to this: the children that were forced into these ‘schools’ and ‘orphanages’ were abused and even killed in some cases. Most never saw their families again.
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u/keylo-92 Mar 22 '23
My parents told me not to listen to much of what the teachers say about residential schools, cause they don’t know, sure as shit, teacher was making it sound like rainbows and butterflies and they all willingly wanted to go blah blah blah, was like dude, my parents lived through it, it was not a happy experience… they joy people would feel when the community would hear about those certain priests and nuns dying… not only handcuffs, some of these schools had boiler rooms with what was almost like jail cells, for kids that would try run away, and for the sick priests and nuns to do disgusting shit to kids in private, so fucked beyond words… couldnt imagine just chilling out, than the rcmp roll up, just to take my kids, no if’s and’s or but’s
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u/ShitfacedGrizzlyBear Mar 22 '23
First time I ever learned about Indian boarding schools was in a family law class in law school. Even then, it wasn’t exactly part of the curriculum. A former student of the professor’s was giving us a guest lecture. She practices in Alaska, so she works a lot with native people and people who live on reservations. The boarding schools don’t exist anymore, but the way adoption and all that works with Native Americans is still super fucked up. It’s sad.
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u/Fyrrys Mar 22 '23
I honestly don't know why people are made so uncomfortable by learning what our ancestors did. It's in the past, you can't change it, and unless you have the desire to do the horrible things our ancestors did, you shouldn't feel ashamed. I know one side of my family more than likely owned slaves in America, the other side was too poor to own slaves, and going further back, my ancestors made slaves of any enemies no matter their color. I wouldn't do it myself, so I'm not ashamed. I'm not necessarily proud that my ancestors were huge racists, but it's not like I can do anything about that.
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u/GroundedEagle Mar 22 '23
I took a class on Native American history and traditional cultures in college and it was one of the most impactful courses, really taught me a lot about the horrors American settlers put natives through that I didn’t learn in highschool
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u/wheelersan Mar 22 '23
Non Ownership of wrong doing is a human flaw. Across the board.. self reflection is a extremely important skill that must be shown by example and taught through patience, empathy, and understanding
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u/Fitz911 Mar 22 '23
You have to hear about your country's history. Even if it's bad. That's ok. It's important to learn so you don't repeat the mistakes of the past.
Greetings from Germany
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u/Ok_Salad999 Mar 22 '23
I’m in the middle of reading a book called Clearing the Plains, and it’s about the decimation of First Nations people primarily in Canada. It’s horrific the way these people were taken advantage of and wiped from the face of the earth. I’m American but I still find it incredible just how much of this history was glossed over or neglected being taught in school.
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u/tonybenwhite Mar 22 '23
Imagine ordering this from the local smith. “Hey Jebodiah. You remember those handcuffs you made for the sheriff last week? Yeah we’re going to need like 3 dozen more, but… like… smaller. No, smaller, think like child sized. Yep. To put on children. God demands it, Jeb.”
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u/qleptt Mar 22 '23
I had only just found out last month that the settlers killed off most of the buffalo population to cut the native Americans food supply off. We were never told that in school we were told that they killed them because the buffalo were killing the cattle of the settlers.
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u/Eddie-bullshit Mar 22 '23
All history is dark af, it DESERVES to be taught, and we deserve to hear what happened, regardless of who it happened too or when. I want to learn history not patriotism to the country I'm in
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u/PTSDforMe Mar 22 '23
What we did to the Natives, among others is one of the most horrific things a country could ever do. We need to know the dark to keep progressing towards a better society
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u/SlobMarley13 Mar 22 '23
These people don't want history lessons they want action movies where the pure, moral good guys violently defeat the evil bad guys and everyone lives happily ever after.
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u/TheLion920817 Mar 22 '23
It’s the winners of any war that determine what is considered right or wrong after including what’s taught later
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u/L44KSO Mar 22 '23
Oh wow - how is it that you lot are so much on freedom l, but when it comes of freedom of learning you want to restrict it so much?
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u/Daherrin7 Mar 22 '23
Because an educated society is a more free-thinking society and conservatives, especially in the US, are absolutely terrified about anyone else learning from history. Don't fool yourself though, this stuff is never confined to just the Americans for very long, the bullshit tends to spread if other countries aren't being careful
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u/lastprophecy Mar 22 '23
Canada is our sleeper-cell for spreading this, and the friendly face of Native genocide.
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u/SensitiveAd5962 Mar 22 '23
Oh ya, the grandchildren of people who did the genocide jumped right on that freedom convoy.
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u/m12123 Mar 22 '23
I wasn't really taught anything about Native culture in Canada until around grade 11 in highschool. It was always brushed aside besides "casual" mentions of residential schools. I took a Native studies class (optional) and only then learned exactly how fucked up residential schooling was and that there is still to this day ongoing battles with Native residents of Canada. Some people I've spoken to don't even know what residential schools are besides just "bad thing that happened".
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u/Zilberfrid Mar 22 '23
The Netherlands isn't necessarily bad at teaching history, but our bad bits aren't as well taught as I'd like.
We had a teacher born in Indonesia that filled in some of those spots, but they were not as obvious in our books.
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u/L44KSO Mar 22 '23
Every country has its dark spots. Interestingly though in Germany they talk a lot about a certain someone and what happend etc, but someone none of the grandparents were the bad guys...
How the hell do you do that all, if all the country is full of good people? /s
Hard truths are, that almost all of our grandparents, great grandparents etc etc have played parts in some shit, which then gets whitewashed. Same will happen to our generation etc.
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u/mrg1957 Mar 22 '23
I was taught about the first Thanksgiving when they clothed the naked natives with warm blankets.
No, I'm not making that shit up. I was taught that in 1963 in Pennsylvania. Of course, the teacher and the class were all white, as I am. Later in life, I'd have a native coworker who educated me.