I'm willing to have a rational conversation with you. If it is beyond you to recognize destroying native American/ confederate/ immigration relics is a way of teying to forget or minimize our history please say so and we can go separate ways.
Ken Burns: Being American means reckoning with our violent history
- Thread starter cigaretteman
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How does removing statues that glorified people who tried to break-up the United States and maintain chattel slavery IGNORE the "bad things?" It's actually working in the complete opposite direction. You're got it totally backwards.
Do you have ANYTHING ELSE besides your beloved Confederate statues?
See below. This isn't just a union/ confederacy conversation. There are any examples of dark times in the past we choose to glaze over because it's easier to dismiss it instead of acknowledging the trials and tribulations that have got us to where we are.
I'm having a civilized discussion. Removing statues glorifying our mistakes is a GOOD thing.
You think we have done a great job of talking about the horrendous acts of immigration early in our history? Feel like there has been some shinola on the way we treated natives that has minimized things?
It must be because that is all you've been arguing about- removing Confederate memorials. You've been told, many times, how glorifying our mistakes is not helping us going forward. Anything else?
I think it's been seriously minimized. Americans like to be right about everything, even when they're wrong. Those are subjective polarities, of course. Whenever Americans are forced to reconcile their ugly past, many of them respond with things like:
"Every country has a bloody past." And, attitudes like that are precisely why our wheels stay stuck in the mud.
I agree that there is dark times we have ignored or glossed over for far too long, but the Confederacy isn't one of them. We shouldn't have ever allowed Southern states to start putting up monuments and such to pacify them. Shouldn't have allowed the Jim Crow era and such to be implemented in the south. Shouldn't have treated Native Americans as poorly as we did. I get that some of the actions were part of battles/wars, but many other things to include broken treaties were not. Should not have treated Japanese American the way we did during WW2. The list goes on.
You are a one trick pony. Your whole goal was to make it about the confederacy and i have listed other examples where we the people have decided it is better to remove and forget instead of embrace. Have a good day ram.
My goal??? I've asked YOU for examples. That is what you provided. That is what you keep referring to- Confederate monuments being removed. That's the one trick!
I totally agree that White America has been hard-at-work to eliminate, eradicate and even exterminate those who have darker complexions in the last 250 years. Until recently (the last 50-60 years) it was left unchecked. It's changing, finally. Are you for it or against it? The comments, so far, are ambiguous at best.
Only thing I am aware of being removed is confederate monuments/statues. And, I think that's a good thing. As for ignoring negative history like Tulsa, Native massacres, Japanese internment camps is not the way it should be. These things were bad, but tell those stories so they are known and less apt to repeat them.
I have provided the list of other obvious examples several times.
I don't know what you are asking if im for or against but I am a firm believer that we have made many mistakes in the past and thr best way to avoid those mistakes going forward is to acknowledge they happened.
It's a statue/painting. You're not "forgetting history" by removing them. They are tributes to traitors. You can and should still teach about their historical roles.
It's a lot easier to forget that chapter in the book when little Timmy doesn't raise his hand and ask "who's this guy".
I can actually concede that removing statues, to ME, is sort of a peripheral move. And, it can empower people on "the left", the really far left, to want to remove statues of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, or anyone who doesn't meet the criteria of 21st century morality.
Confederate statues don't affect me... they never did. Consider that most of my family is located south of Richmond, VA for 80-100 years. I am a direct descendant of one of the generals on Monument Avenue. Most people in my family can't name 5 other Confederate generals, or 5 Civil War battles. THAT is knowledge of history, not statues. And, they live within miles of DOZENS of Civil War battles!
Accepting blame? I'm not going to accept blame because I didn't do anything to anyone nor did my ancestors who are fairly recent immigrants to America. Of course past citizens of the U.S. did bad things, so are some present citizens and so will future citizens, what is the point? Make no mistake we need to learn from our mistakes, admit them and try to do better going forward but that is as far as I will go.
There isn't a country or culture or tribe or race of people that haven't done things in the past that they may be ashamed of today. We are all humans and all capable of sin. The modern day fascination with sins of the past is nothing more than a way for some to try and coerce advantages today from descendants of past wrong doers. All we can and should do is learn from history and move on.
Except people aren't moving on because the mistakes, especially in the treatment of black Americans, continue.
Isn't what Ken Burns talking about a mainstream position anyway?
What gets me about some of these arguments is that they're made in such a way as to imply history curriculum in America is basically what you'd find at some backwards rural school district in Georgia. They're the minority, not the standard. What's most common across school districts in the US IS teaching of (some of) America's most notable moral transgressions.
What gets me about some of these arguments is that they're made in such a way as to imply history curriculum in America is basically what you'd find at some backwards rural school district in Georgia. They're the minority, not the standard. What's most common across school districts in the US IS teaching of (some of) America's most notable moral transgressions.
Also....and this is the one that I really really really struggle with:
Iowa was a Union State. Iowa lost more men per capita than any other state. The dead are buried all over our state. Honored at our State Capitol. Rightfully so.
What kind of Fin Jackwagon flies a confederate flag in Iowa? God what I would give to see a brigade of Iowa's finest circa 1865 come across one of these fine folks in the small towns of Iowa. Lots of Iowa small towns have a least one person flying one.
If that were true the brown people wouldn't be here. It isn't true now and wasn't then.
Well, people like you can ignore reality. That's fine. It's become a rite of passage for some.
People like me.....
Well done.
White people have been the dominant culture in North America for 250 years according to you and you are probably.correct. you assert that for that time period white people have been trying to exterminate brown and black people and in your smug arrogance proclaim this as fact. If your claim were true there wouldn't be black or brown people here. White people would have finished the job if that was the goal. What would have stopped them exactly to carry out the extermination you claim was occurring? Nothing would have stopped them. If that was the goal as you claim what stopped them from doing it?
thank you!
Here is what I actually wrote: "White America has been hard-at-work to eliminate, eradicate and even exterminate those who have darker complexions in the last 250 years." I was referring to the Native Indian Tribes. But, if Mexicans, or black, or any other minority got in the white man's way, they'd do whatever they needed to do in order to achieve their goal. That is what I mean by "hard at work."
If you don't think the US Government tried to exterminate indigenous tribes of North America, then that's your ignorance.
... need to realize that white supremacy is deeply-ingrained in the country's origin, development, and very deep-seated in our culture.
I don't need to realize anything. Your propaganda is just propaganda. Nothing more.... need to realize that white supremacy is deeply-ingrained in the country's origin, development, and very deep-seated in our culture.
If they had tried to do it there wouldn't be native Americans. You didn't answer the question.....what kept them from doing it?
Lol - that isn't history. That's commemoration intended to honor. Do you want to honor people who led the effort to maintain slavery? SMH
Taking down a statue or a painting is not "ignoring" the bad thing. It's removing the honor of that "bad thing". History is taught.
Highlighting these issues in classrooms and museums is a great idea. Putting up monuments to honor those who perpetrated the atrocities is not.
You haven't provided other examples at all. It is encouraging to know that you, of all people on here, must be in favor of things like the 1619 project, CRT being taught in colleges, teaching children about the horrific ways Native Americans, Japanese and immigrants were treated in the past. How industrialists treating workers so badly that they led to the creation of unions to give some balance of power. All of those nasty little details that help explain where we are today.
So enlightened. Welcome.
List the posts where you have provided "obvious examples" beyond confederate statues or paintings.
Native Americans were too valuable as property? You are a fool. The claim was white people have been trying to exterminate brown and black people for 250 years. It was a stupid claim because if that had been the goal it would have been accomplished. Conquering? Yes. Subjugation? Yes. Extermination? No.
The thing people like you leave out as you are screaming to teach the true history of things is the brown and black people didn't act any different than white people. You look at brown and black people and their history through an incredibly racist and incorrect lens. The question I have for you Riley as you laugh like a jackass at everything is are you capable of your own thoughts and growth that lead to understanding the truth of the human condition or are you simply a hyena? I'm guessing hyena but maybe there is hope...
If you want to paint white people as colonial evil occupiers that committed genocide in conquering North America you have a very serious problem. The people you seek to tell the truth about did the same things. We can tell the truth about history including the unvarnished truth about the misdeeds of white people without painting white people as some overarching evil in the world that did things differently. They didn't. Western culture isnt evil and native Americans were not peaceful or living in utopia. They killed each other just as brutally well before whitey landed as anything white people did. Part of that pilgrim story that gets left out is that the white people later killed the tribe they made peace with.. you might know that. What you probably don't know is the tribe had dinner with the pilgrims again, at least a few ot them, except it was the pilgrims on the menu. In guessing most people don't know that part. The noble savage is a racist trope created by hyenas like yourself to paint native Americans as something other than just people with the goal of demonizing colonialism and whites. You should change but I doubt you will.
Laughing at you for being such an ignorant fool. Native Americans weren't the only brown people around. African Americans were too valuable as slaves to exterminate them all.
Your white person insecurities are communicated loud and clear. Lol.
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