theambassadorposts: know your history My grandfather told me this and many other corrections to my h
know your history
My grandfather told me this and many other corrections to my history book. He is Ojibwe. He is the only native person in my family that I’ve met. He married a white lady, became a fireman, and moved off the reservation and never went back. He always talks about these things with sadness. He would occasionally ask me what I was learning in history class and add to it. When I mentioned the slaughtering of the bison in class in 4th grade or so, people just looked at me like I was making it up. Like good ol’ westward expansion and manifest destiny couldn’t possibly be that terrible. I wish these things were taught. I don’t like the excuse that ‘its too serious for little kids to learn’ or ‘it’s awkward to teach’. I could handle hearing and processing it in fourth grade, the rest of America and the world can process it.
It was conquest. It still has far-reaching and devastating effects. Just call it like it was and is. Modern America does not like to own up to its history, and this is part of why there’s still so many problems allowed to perpetuate and fester. I do not get angry about these problems anymore. I do not have outrage. Perhaps I should. But I do not have anger because the glossing over of problems and histories and injustices does not surprise me. I get disappointed.
