Anonymous #1 16h

The best example is the way Native Americans are approached when discussing the history of the Americas. Obviously teaching they were savages who needed to be civilized by Europeans was wrong but going hard the other way and making them out to be solely victims of colonialism is equally dumb and reductive. The relationship between Europeans and Native Americans was complex and constantly evolving but it’s taught as if it can be reduced to a black and white issue

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Anonymous #1 16h

Another example in American history is the Civil War, it is a conflict with deep and multifaceted causes beyond slavery but those other issues are typically neglected because it is easier to make the Civil War a war of good and evil than it is to show the very grey motivations of all parties involved

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Anonymous #1 16h

I think WWII is another good example simply because it’s another conflict that’s taught like it is exclusively a war of good and evil which is a limited and honestly uninteresting way to view it. Nobody in their right mind would say the NAZIs were good but it’s kinda lazy to say these guys were so bad anyone who fought them must be good

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Anonymous OP 15h

They’re not solely victims to colonialism, but we glorify manifest destiny and ignore the fact that we did genocide the native populations of the United States. Acknowledging that is not “going too hard” in the other direction. I don’t think they’re equally reductive, either. A perspective that glorifies our actions as an apartheid genocidal state is worse than teaching that history through the perspective that yes, native Americans were victims.

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Anonymous OP 15h

The civil war is very multifaceted in the sense that it was a class issue. The south dominated the US due to the CT compromise and 3/5ths compromise, in conjunction with the vast wealth obtained by brutalizing and exploiting fellow human beings. But slavery was the most important factor in this distinction. There were certainly motives beyond bettering human rights, but it does ultimately boil down to slavery.

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Anonymous #1 15h

Acknowledging it isn’t going too far, skipping the chunks of history that happened before full on Manifest Destiny is. The Native Americans were major geopolitical players essentially right up until the Civil War and that’s not really discussed in favor of them being done wrong by the British, the Spanish, the Americans etc

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Anonymous OP 15h

And I actually agree with this. I think WWII is taught really poorly. America especially chooses to ignore the trade embargo on Japan that initiated Pearl Harbor, ignores our own concentration camps (Japanese internment), ignores the soviet influence that led to us nuking Japan while Japan was about to surrender, and most of all: ignores teaching the desperation and rhetoric that made Hitler rise to power so effective. We also completely ignore the inspiration Hitler got from America at the time

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Anonymous OP 15h

Mmm okay I get what you’re saying now and that’s a very good point. I agree!

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Anonymous #1 15h

I’m always fascinated to read about how Europeans and Native Americans were pretty much universally picking sides in any conflict to advance their own interests and it was only pretty late in the game that the Europeans/Americans looked at the Native Americans and said this all belongs to me. The bigotry and the double dealing existed almost the whole time (on both sides, even between natives) but a lot of the worst things to happen to Native Americans didn’t start happening until the late 1800s

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Anonymous #1 15h

And in most American history courses we go from pre Columbus to Westward Expansion without talking about the King Philip’s War, Queen Anne’s War, the Beaver Wars, the French and Indian War, Native American participation in the American Revolution and War of 1812, and even Native American participation in the Mexican-American war and Civil War just so we can get to Custer and his contemporaries and the wars with the Plains Indians. It’s truly interesting history and should be more widely known

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