Explanation: For those of you who are not aware of European colonial history in the Americas, the First Nations 'agreed' to move only at gunpoint - when, of course, they were not shot outright and agreements eschewed completely. The phrasing here makes it sound much less like ethnic cleansing, when, you know, it was ethnic cleansing.
In Canada, they made these agreements to force my people onto small reservations with limited supports, services or funds. Part of my treaty heritage is that we get an annual payment for signing onto the treaty - everyone gets a bit of money every year. When they signed onto the treaty in 1904, they agreed on giving $2 per person every year ...... we still get that $2 every year. Every other historic agreement with the Royal family or international agreement is adjusted to inflation .... but Indian treaties (they're called 'Indian' because that is what the original term was, so it is kept in use when referring to treaties) they all remained the same.
They can adjust agreements made with Europeans to adjust with the times
They don't, won't or can't adjust monetary amounts when it comes to Indian treaties in Canada.
.... but the main reason why they even settled on these treaties in the first place was that it was planned, hoped and encouraged and expedited to have all 'Indians' either die, disappear or become naturalized as just Canadians with no land rights within a few decades .... 100 years ago!
Bank of Canada's inflation calculator only goes back to 1914, and that says $2 CAD from then is worth $54.47 CAD today (39.83 USD, 35.06 EUR) so it does not look like that was any type of good deal back then, nor would it be today even if it increased with the CPI.
Totally shameful what the governments continue to do in regard to native people. It's not like they forget you're there, since I'm guessing they have to approve the payment every time, so it seems to be an active and ongoing choice each time to deliver that slap in the face. Makes it hard to say it was just a mistake in the past but those of us alive now have no responsibility in that.
It probably wasn't green at the time since ya know the US didn't exist much less dollar bills and cotton money instead of coinage and various types of paper banknotes.
If we're talking about US history, this page would be in reference to Europeans arriving in the 1600s. By that time, the population of North America had been dramatically reduced by foreign disease. For the comparatively small number of foreigners showing up, there kind of already was "room" because of that.
Later on, when the US government was actively relocating people, different groups of people responded in different ways. Some decided it would be best to cooperate. Some decided it would be best to stand their ground and fight. None did these things because they freely "agreed" to.
Aha, yes, definitely true. I'm far more familiar with US history, but my understanding is that the way Native Americans / First Nations were treated by the US and Canada are equally horrible, only differing in the details.
Some of those details are critical. The very first settlers in Canada were French, and many actually integrated into First Nations populations, which gave rise to the Métis population. Later on, especially after the British took over, things went downhill.
There was some integration by the British early on. I'm thinking of the Roanoke colony, where the people who were left there "disappeared," leaving only some cryptic "Croatoan" marks on fenceposts. It's all but certain that they integrated with the Croatoan people on Ocracoke Island. There were other incidents of British integration, but I'm sure the French up north did that a lot more.
I'm from Oklahoma, the place we relocated Native Americans, formerly known as Indian Territory. We studied the Trail of Tears more than once, and it wasn't candy coated. Probably could have been presented as even more brutal than they taught us.
That's quite a limited perspective. Violence was only one of the coercive tactics that were employed. The way you've phrased this makes it sound like the other ways in which first nations people were removed from their land were not also horrible.
This artist writes for The Onion and makes sure to go out of the way to be completely absolutely absurd to make sure it’s always abundantly clear that it’s satire. Like so far it’s a satire of satire. Apparently that still catches some people up though lol.
if it's satire, it's indiscernible from actual right wing hate. so pardon my 'whoooosh'able moment, you'll have to forgive me, this hateful disregard for history and decency seemed very authentic.
You didn't think "crying Jesus waving two American flags" was obvious enough? There's no "if" here, Ward Sutton has been doing that satirical bit in The Onion for almost 20 years now (it even says "Onion Syndicate" in the top-right)
The whole bit is the fictional cartoonist Stan Kelly is a horrible wrong-about-everything goblin. It's laughing directly at those assholes and their twisted view of the world. If you took like two seconds out of your misguided indignation you could have figured that out on your own.
Yeah, but usually, the perspective matches the map perspective, so people expect west to be left. The fact that the sign is there at all points to the orientation being deliberately backwards.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. If you're on the east coast with the ocean on your left, you ARE looking south from the north. What is your point?
If you know anything about the Residency Schools, you'll know that Canada is actually behind the US on this issue. A few years ago, someone shared on reddit their kid taking home an assignment asking the student to list all the positive things that Residency Schools did for First Nation kids.
Hmm depends what you mean by "like Australia". Australia were brutal about how they treated their indigenous population. Straight up to kidnapping their kids and trying to breed them out of existence, last century...
I don't know how they teach it today but I know they still have a long way to go to making things better.
New Zealand on the other hand, while doing some fucked up shit of their own, have gone a long way to teaching the atrocious treatment of their indigenous people and try very hard to embrace and grow the culture of it within the worst populace. Might be a better comparison?
That's not representative of how we're all taught in Canada. Where I'm from, we're taught in school exactly how awful residential schools were, the people responsible for it, and the lasting damage it has caused our Indigenous people. It's not something that's brushed aside like it wasn't an atrocity, and many members of our community are still affected by it.
Yeah I was confused as well. I once was seriously considering moving to Australia, and so I visited for a month first to make sure it was definitely right for me. The amount of casual racism I noticed in the first day alone put me off for life.
Its a balance, the government is trying to push it pretty hard - but thats made some racist areas even more racist in response.
Though Hudson bay company is shutting down and we can all celebrate that
Edit: I just remembered most reserves dont even have fiber internet though it would cost pennies to connect to the existing lines. Yeah no the systematic racism is very much still here.
We recently had an issue where students were taught slaves in the US were taught valuable job skills also a teacher was asked to teach both sides of the holocaust
Must be. I was just thinking that I'm confident that my kids will learn things differently when they get to American History than I did back in the early 2000s, and for the best. I'm just glad I have a couple of years, because my seven year old is probably getting tired of me describing things as "complicated."
From personal experience, going to a school in a liberal, northern state, we just speed ran certain parts, but at least they didn't deny bad stuff happened. I've heard that if you tour a southern plantation, the tour is very different if the group is all white verses if there's at least one Black person.
Oh, not PR, actual denial, of everything. First, you get rid of the people, because they shouldn't be there, then you remove any trace they were there, because they shouldn't have been there, and finally, you remove even the memory of there being a removal, because they weren't there, there was nobody there, ever.
"Knowing they were responsible for all the problems in the world, the Jews decided to take some time to concentrate on self reflection at the summer camps we built. Their overwhelming guilt caused many of them to work themselves to death"
My schooling in the 70s and 80s was all about how great Columbus was and how helpful and gracious native people were to the people who came on the Mayflower. There might have been a paragraph about the Trail of Tears. Manifest Destiny was taught as a good thing.
The fact is that there's limited space in general [nation] history books, and in the US at least, the fight for that space is heavily influenced by national/civic pride and American Exceptionalism.
Japanese schools censorship of their atrocities during the WW2 is legendary. The prevailing understanding there during their 3 years occupation of Indonesia from 1942 to 1945 is that they're liberating Indonesia from the Dutch and the 3 years were setting up Indonesian independence working with local people.
Here in England, I certainly didn't learn that we were the proud inventors of concentration camps, back in the day. Granted it's forty years since I was in history class, but I doubt that's changed.
It was just what you did back then. By it, I mean colonialism, murdering and enslaving native populations, persecuting literally anyone and everyone. It's just what you did. I almost kinda wish schools took that attitude and went on to describe the atrocities, versus brushing over things. People were savages for a long, long time. Still are. But perhaps if we identify the savagery, we can get better. I do think we are definitely better than our ancestors, and I like to think a few generations down the line will talk about me like old racist grandpa, you know? Because that'll at least mean we did a good job trying to fix it.
Hey OP, you should name and shame the textbook if you're willing. It could be PII, so only do it if you feel safe with that and it doesn't give away too much, but we should share who/where is spreading lies like this. I'm sure it's supported by the "the left wants to rewrite American history" people.
Canadian school textbook in 2017. Unsurprisingly it has some other revisionist history in there about First Nation people. The one called out in the article could almost be an Always Sunny joke it's so incredibly dark:
The book informed children that First Nations peoples "moved to areas called reserves, where they could live undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of the settlers"
Lol some of these comments are completely ignoring the reality of why it was phrased this way. Its a textbook for school children probably below the age of 10. Do you really expect middle school public education teachers to explain genocide and ethnic clensing to eight year olds? They slowly introduce the truth come highschool when kids are older because its horrific and toddlers have no need for their childhood to be ruined with horrific adult truths. Weren't you allowed to believe pilgrims and Indians cam e together for Thanksgiving for a few years of your childhood?
Do you really expect middle school public education teachers to explain genocide and ethnic clensing to eight year olds?
"The European colonists forced the native population off of their land" is plenty understandable to a small child
Weren't you allowed to believe pilgrims and Indians cam e together for Thanksgiving for a few years of your childhood?
I was also allowed to believe that gay people wanted to rape me and that farm animals live long happy lives out in meadows. Who the fuck benefits from children being lied to?
can’t remember being a troubled one themselves have to say
I can remember it, the lies I was told as a child have turned me into a very cynical adult who has serious issues trusting anyone about just about anything...
Abuse & molestation need to be managed by a professional.
However, the truth is true regardless.
"Innocence" & "protection" with lies & deception are mostly rationalizations some adults throw around to make it easier for them to handle their discomfort with truth around children.
For their own protection, children are better off knowing taboo subjects, especially what to do when someone touches them wrong.
When my parents would tell me the unvarnished truth, they hadn't undermined their credibility & I knew I could approach them about anything.
We'd have rewarding discussions.
You don't need to bring up painful memories or lie about them either.
You don't need to tell them anything.
You can simply love & care.
Thinking impersonal truths about objective reality (rather than intimate, painful memories) should diminish enjoyment of life is a limited, misguided perspective: they don't have to.
I appreciate your input, and I apologize for dogpiling. Not telling your daughter what happened to her is absolutely the right choice, but I do not think it's equivalent to instilling disinformation about the treatment of native populations in the Americas. Omitting the awful particular details is good, no child should know what rape and murder are, but we aren't just doing that—we're teaching our kids that "it's fine actually, the settlers and the native populations were best friends!" It contributes to a widespread ignorance of the New World's history well into adulthood.
It really isn't that hard. "The European colonists forced the native population off their land." You can spare the rape and murder until the kids are older, but don't just outright lie to them
Yeah, middle school is literally where it was hammered in for me. I think around ~4th grade we started to get some more serious "We treated the Native Americans really poorly", but I remember very starkly from 6th grade on that we got a pretty robust view of the historical-scale resolution of the genocides, even though they weren't referred to as such. Invasions, broken treaties, massacres, and backstabbing.
Better than the washed-down history I got, which made it dull & pointless: why do they think children like to draw boring pilgrims or waste mindspace on insipid, antiquated shit drained of all significance?
A minor exception was elementary school lessons on the holocaust & genocide by the Nazis.
They showed us death camps, piles of shoes, masses of corpses, read & played Anne Frank's diary, and they invited survivors to speak & show their tattoos.
An odd point was when they showed photos of Nazi artifacts made from human remains & asked how that made us feel: some kids (recalling an earlier lesson treating native americans positively for resourcefully using every part of the animal) were confused & drew comparisons.
I hate opinions like this. It pretends that children are too stupid to understand reality. Children are generally far more intelligent and capable of understanding things than people give them credit for. They just need it to be explained to them.
The reason this is an issue is because it creates this idea that it was mutual, and ingrains a mythos that makes it harder to learn the truth later. Sure, you can coddle them and let them believe everything was happy and peaceful as children, but that's how you end up with adults who believe America doesn't have horrors in its past and we were a pure and moral nation. It creates a conservative ideology where things were perfect before and we shouldn't change or try to fix issues.
In US, curriculum's are different from state to state. SOME children eventually receive the truth, and having learned the truth realize they were lied to by their educators and lose trust in the education system. Other children never learn the truth, and instead argue that there was no genocide because thats what they were taught in school. If the country is willing to make bombs that get dropped on children around the world, then surely we can drop a few truth bombs on our own children.
I see where your coming from but I don't think whitewashing it is the answer...they could've just stated where the settlements were and that native people were displaced it doesn't have to say anything about genocide and can just cover that aspect of it later.
This just sets the wrong framework for the later education your talking about
Explanation: For those of you who are not aware of European colonial history in the Americas, the First Nations 'agreed' to move only at gunpoint - when, of course, they were not shot outright and agreements eschewed completely. The phrasing here makes it sound much less like ethnic cleansing, when, you know, it was ethnic cleansing.
In Canada, they made these agreements to force my people onto small reservations with limited supports, services or funds. Part of my treaty heritage is that we get an annual payment for signing onto the treaty - everyone gets a bit of money every year. When they signed onto the treaty in 1904, they agreed on giving $2 per person every year ...... we still get that $2 every year. Every other historic agreement with the Royal family or international agreement is adjusted to inflation .... but Indian treaties (they're called 'Indian' because that is what the original term was, so it is kept in use when referring to treaties) they all remained the same.
They can adjust agreements made with Europeans to adjust with the times
They don't, won't or can't adjust monetary amounts when it comes to Indian treaties in Canada.
.... but the main reason why they even settled on these treaties in the first place was that it was planned, hoped and encouraged and expedited to have all 'Indians' either die, disappear or become naturalized as just Canadians with no land rights within a few decades .... 100 years ago!
Bank of Canada's inflation calculator only goes back to 1914, and that says $2 CAD from then is worth $54.47 CAD today (39.83 USD, 35.06 EUR) so it does not look like that was any type of good deal back then, nor would it be today even if it increased with the CPI.
Totally shameful what the governments continue to do in regard to native people. It's not like they forget you're there, since I'm guessing they have to approve the payment every time, so it seems to be an active and ongoing choice each time to deliver that slap in the face. Makes it hard to say it was just a mistake in the past but those of us alive now have no responsibility in that.
The phrasing and also that tiny drawing near the headline.
Settler: I'll give you these piles of bills for this land, so you'll be rich.
Native: what are these green papers
It probably wasn't green at the time since ya know the US didn't exist much less dollar bills and cotton money instead of coinage and various types of paper banknotes.
Also, this was Canada.
Damn, I completely missed that XD
A bit more:
If we're talking about US history, this page would be in reference to Europeans arriving in the 1600s. By that time, the population of North America had been dramatically reduced by foreign disease. For the comparatively small number of foreigners showing up, there kind of already was "room" because of that.
Later on, when the US government was actively relocating people, different groups of people responded in different ways. Some decided it would be best to cooperate. Some decided it would be best to stand their ground and fight. None did these things because they freely "agreed" to.
Based on the map and the use of "First Nations," this is a Canadian textbook. I have no doubt this happens (and worse) in American textbooks, though.
Aha, yes, definitely true. I'm far more familiar with US history, but my understanding is that the way Native Americans / First Nations were treated by the US and Canada are equally horrible, only differing in the details.
Some of those details are critical. The very first settlers in Canada were French, and many actually integrated into First Nations populations, which gave rise to the Métis population. Later on, especially after the British took over, things went downhill.
There was some integration by the British early on. I'm thinking of the Roanoke colony, where the people who were left there "disappeared," leaving only some cryptic "Croatoan" marks on fenceposts. It's all but certain that they integrated with the Croatoan people on Ocracoke Island. There were other incidents of British integration, but I'm sure the French up north did that a lot more.
"Quebec City" is a big clue, too.
textbooks made in other countries also include maps of Canada - your geographical secrets are known to us!
Yep:
Oops, missed that part!
Heh. No worries. I get it. If I had a nickel...
I'm from Oklahoma, the place we relocated Native Americans, formerly known as Indian Territory. We studied the Trail of Tears more than once, and it wasn't candy coated. Probably could have been presented as even more brutal than they taught us.
Several of these people actually succeeded in prosecuting a war against invading US forces like the Shoshone.
Then, of course, we just reneged on the treaties later when they weren't on a war footing.
That's quite a limited perspective. Violence was only one of the coercive tactics that were employed. The way you've phrased this makes it sound like the other ways in which first nations people were removed from their land were not also horrible.
Ftfy
holy fuck, that's intellectually, historically and morally revolting all at the same time
This artist writes for The Onion and makes sure to go out of the way to be completely absolutely absurd to make sure it’s always abundantly clear that it’s satire. Like so far it’s a satire of satire. Apparently that still catches some people up though lol.
about the cartoonist: https://slate.com/culture/2020/12/sickos-meme-ward-sutton-kartoonist-kelly.html
Yeah his work is satirical.
TY for this, TIL.
Whoosh?
Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture which says that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.
if it's satire, it's indiscernible from actual right wing hate. so pardon my 'whoooosh'able moment, you'll have to forgive me, this hateful disregard for history and decency seemed very authentic.
and fuck off with your whooooshy bullshit anyway
You didn't think "crying Jesus waving two American flags" was obvious enough? There's no "if" here, Ward Sutton has been doing that satirical bit in The Onion for almost 20 years now (it even says "Onion Syndicate" in the top-right)
The whole bit is the fictional cartoonist Stan Kelly is a horrible wrong-about-everything goblin. It's laughing directly at those assholes and their twisted view of the world. If you took like two seconds out of your misguided indignation you could have figured that out on your own.
Alright well being unable to integrate context into your experience is what we call a "you problem"
I mean feel free to read the other replies to your comment. It’s a well-known satirical cartoon.
good for you. do you want a cookie?
because when comedy is indiscernible from right wing bullshit, I don't find any of it funny, onion or not.
goddamn it how many times do I have to do this GDPR shit
REJECT ALL
Maybe youre just dumb?
ftfy. really reveals your superiority lol
It's beautiful, isn't it? Even the sign that says "west" is pointing right.
Assuming they're on the east coast with the ocean on the left of the image, it should be pointing right.
Yeah, but usually, the perspective matches the map perspective, so people expect west to be left. The fact that the sign is there at all points to the orientation being deliberately backwards.
Unless the view point is from the north looking south
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. If you're on the east coast with the ocean on your left, you ARE looking south from the north. What is your point?
You're absolutely right; I meant to reply to the other comment, but you already corrected them
Ah no problem.
*latest fad
Found a source for the text book.
If you know anything about the Residency Schools, you'll know that Canada is actually behind the US on this issue. A few years ago, someone shared on reddit their kid taking home an assignment asking the student to list all the positive things that Residency Schools did for First Nation kids.
Hmm depends what you mean by "like Australia". Australia were brutal about how they treated their indigenous population. Straight up to kidnapping their kids and trying to breed them out of existence, last century...
I don't know how they teach it today but I know they still have a long way to go to making things better.
New Zealand on the other hand, while doing some fucked up shit of their own, have gone a long way to teaching the atrocious treatment of their indigenous people and try very hard to embrace and grow the culture of it within the worst populace. Might be a better comparison?
That's not representative of how we're all taught in Canada. Where I'm from, we're taught in school exactly how awful residential schools were, the people responsible for it, and the lasting damage it has caused our Indigenous people. It's not something that's brushed aside like it wasn't an atrocity, and many members of our community are still affected by it.
Yeah I was confused as well. I once was seriously considering moving to Australia, and so I visited for a month first to make sure it was definitely right for me. The amount of casual racism I noticed in the first day alone put me off for life.
They are. Australia put aborginal kids in residence schools. Watch the movie "Rabbit Proof Fence".
I assume you're referring to the Stolen Generations.
Its a balance, the government is trying to push it pretty hard - but thats made some racist areas even more racist in response.
Though Hudson bay company is shutting down and we can all celebrate that
Edit: I just remembered most reserves dont even have fiber internet though it would cost pennies to connect to the existing lines. Yeah no the systematic racism is very much still here.
We recently had an issue where students were taught slaves in the US were taught valuable job skills also a teacher was asked to teach both sides of the holocaust
The south?
Yes Florida
Must be. I was just thinking that I'm confident that my kids will learn things differently when they get to American History than I did back in the early 2000s, and for the best. I'm just glad I have a couple of years, because my seven year old is probably getting tired of me describing things as "complicated."
From personal experience, going to a school in a liberal, northern state, we just speed ran certain parts, but at least they didn't deny bad stuff happened. I've heard that if you tour a southern plantation, the tour is very different if the group is all white verses if there's at least one Black person.
Demonstration: The final stage of a genocide is the denial that it was a genocide.
Idk, that final stage tends to occur quite early on
Oh, not PR, actual denial, of everything. First, you get rid of the people, because they shouldn't be there, then you remove any trace they were there, because they shouldn't have been there, and finally, you remove even the memory of there being a removal, because they weren't there, there was nobody there, ever.
yea the final stage is more like covering up that there was one
Europeans caused many genocides in the Americas. That's what books would look like if Hitler had won WW2.
"Knowing they were responsible for all the problems in the world, the Jews decided to take some time to concentrate on self reflection at the summer camps we built. Their overwhelming guilt caused many of them to work themselves to death"
The Trail of
TearsTotally Not Forced Displacement & Genocidethey were tears of happiness on how happy they were that their ancestral homes were now under the stewardship of the colonist
As my old landlord used to say, "it looks like white people live here." And then he'd call the house a shithole and have his son make shitty repairs.
The Trail of Tears of Joy
-Republicans
Wounded Knee according to the American (edit: and Canadian) education systems
Get ready. This is how all school textbooks are going to be from here on out—if they aren’t already. Probably worse.
Based on the map and the use of "First Nations," this is actually a Canadian textbook.
Ah yeah it looks like it. Canadian textbooks are usually better but I remember learning about the "peaceful treaties" in my younger years in school.
Perfect!
This is how they have been. Trying to change that is the type of stuff that has riled folks up about wokeness.
Wasn’t like that when i was in school in texas 90s-2000s but no doubt it is like that now
My schooling in the 70s and 80s was all about how great Columbus was and how helpful and gracious native people were to the people who came on the Mayflower. There might have been a paragraph about the Trail of Tears. Manifest Destiny was taught as a good thing.
The fact is that there's limited space in general [nation] history books, and in the US at least, the fight for that space is heavily influenced by national/civic pride and American Exceptionalism.
Well if you mean they slaughtered the fighters, deliberately infected the tribe with smallpox, and marched the survivors out at gunpoint, then sure.
"Agreed" is doing a LOT of heavy lifting here. Like for values of a long, drawn out war and slaughter coast to coast with many, many broken promises…
Followed by a trail of tears.
Must have been happy tears because they got new friends........
There are indeed some cases where there was a willing exchange but in VERY EARLY days before a genocidal critical mass arrived.
Japanese schools censorship of their atrocities during the WW2 is legendary. The prevailing understanding there during their 3 years occupation of Indonesia from 1942 to 1945 is that they're liberating Indonesia from the Dutch and the 3 years were setting up Indonesian independence working with local people.
Here in England, I certainly didn't learn that we were the proud inventors of concentration camps, back in the day. Granted it's forty years since I was in history class, but I doubt that's changed.
It was just what you did back then. By it, I mean colonialism, murdering and enslaving native populations, persecuting literally anyone and everyone. It's just what you did. I almost kinda wish schools took that attitude and went on to describe the atrocities, versus brushing over things. People were savages for a long, long time. Still are. But perhaps if we identify the savagery, we can get better. I do think we are definitely better than our ancestors, and I like to think a few generations down the line will talk about me like old racist grandpa, you know? Because that'll at least mean we did a good job trying to fix it.
In the Netherlands we call the times where we shipped all the slaves from Africa to America the "golden age".
You can be sure I did not learn much about this in school either.
Hey OP, you should name and shame the textbook if you're willing. It could be PII, so only do it if you feel safe with that and it doesn't give away too much, but we should share who/where is spreading lies like this. I'm sure it's supported by the "the left wants to rewrite American history" people.
Picture wasn't taken by me, I'm afraid.
Question is that an American history book. I know it rare to see "first nation" in the states but it has been years sunce i was in school.
It's Canadian.
Many years later they say "go back to your country!"
In The Man in The High Castle TV show, kids were literally taught that black Americans moved out on their own accord.
I thought they traded their land for a Cadillac ac ac ac, you ought to know by now.
they had a nice neighbourly chat
They were just in the way…
Don't forget the natives also begged the settlers to teach them about Jesus so they could be saved!
Where is this from?
Canadian school textbook in 2017. Unsurprisingly it has some other revisionist history in there about First Nation people. The one called out in the article could almost be an Always Sunny joke it's so incredibly dark:
2017? that's grim
How old is that book?
2025, Florida probably
It's not a U.S. textbook. It's Canadian. We don't use the term First Nation in the states
You sure about that? You sure about how come that's why?
https://media1.giphy.com/media/bjB3gtFvREqqr5NAHW/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b9527w8jshkg6yzzn4r1jbpeekqn8fks7t292al7rhgq&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g
Lol some of these comments are completely ignoring the reality of why it was phrased this way. Its a textbook for school children probably below the age of 10. Do you really expect middle school public education teachers to explain genocide and ethnic clensing to eight year olds? They slowly introduce the truth come highschool when kids are older because its horrific and toddlers have no need for their childhood to be ruined with horrific adult truths. Weren't you allowed to believe pilgrims and Indians cam e together for Thanksgiving for a few years of your childhood?
No because I'm native american and was confronted with the reality of genocide and ethnic cleansing everyday
White children can handle it too
Most white adults can't handle it because of this.
"The European colonists forced the native population off of their land" is plenty understandable to a small child
I was also allowed to believe that gay people wanted to rape me and that farm animals live long happy lives out in meadows. Who the fuck benefits from children being lied to?
I can remember it, the lies I was told as a child have turned me into a very cynical adult who has serious issues trusting anyone about just about anything...
Abuse & molestation need to be managed by a professional.
However, the truth is true regardless. "Innocence" & "protection" with lies & deception are mostly rationalizations some adults throw around to make it easier for them to handle their discomfort with truth around children. For their own protection, children are better off knowing taboo subjects, especially what to do when someone touches them wrong.
When my parents would tell me the unvarnished truth, they hadn't undermined their credibility & I knew I could approach them about anything. We'd have rewarding discussions.
You don't need to bring up painful memories or lie about them either. You don't need to tell them anything. You can simply love & care.
Thinking impersonal truths about objective reality (rather than intimate, painful memories) should diminish enjoyment of life is a limited, misguided perspective: they don't have to.
I appreciate your input, and I apologize for dogpiling. Not telling your daughter what happened to her is absolutely the right choice, but I do not think it's equivalent to instilling disinformation about the treatment of native populations in the Americas. Omitting the awful particular details is good, no child should know what rape and murder are, but we aren't just doing that—we're teaching our kids that "it's fine actually, the settlers and the native populations were best friends!" It contributes to a widespread ignorance of the New World's history well into adulthood.
Yes.
It really isn't that hard. "The European colonists forced the native population off their land." You can spare the rape and murder until the kids are older, but don't just outright lie to them
I did my best to explain slavery to my daughter when she was 6 because due to COVID, we were basically home schooling her...
Yeah, middle school is literally where it was hammered in for me. I think around ~4th grade we started to get some more serious "We treated the Native Americans really poorly", but I remember very starkly from 6th grade on that we got a pretty robust view of the historical-scale resolution of the genocides, even though they weren't referred to as such. Invasions, broken treaties, massacres, and backstabbing.
Better than the washed-down history I got, which made it dull & pointless: why do they think children like to draw boring pilgrims or waste mindspace on insipid, antiquated shit drained of all significance?
A minor exception was elementary school lessons on the holocaust & genocide by the Nazis. They showed us death camps, piles of shoes, masses of corpses, read & played Anne Frank's diary, and they invited survivors to speak & show their tattoos. An odd point was when they showed photos of Nazi artifacts made from human remains & asked how that made us feel: some kids (recalling an earlier lesson treating native americans positively for resourcefully using every part of the animal) were confused & drew comparisons.
Then what, explain why we dont actually give the land back because nobody actually cares outside of virtue signaling?
Where's the hard part?
Don't explain, "I don't know", or "ask them" goes far. Better than telling garbage to unlearn.
I hate opinions like this. It pretends that children are too stupid to understand reality. Children are generally far more intelligent and capable of understanding things than people give them credit for. They just need it to be explained to them.
The reason this is an issue is because it creates this idea that it was mutual, and ingrains a mythos that makes it harder to learn the truth later. Sure, you can coddle them and let them believe everything was happy and peaceful as children, but that's how you end up with adults who believe America doesn't have horrors in its past and we were a pure and moral nation. It creates a conservative ideology where things were perfect before and we shouldn't change or try to fix issues.
Yeah, and it made learning the truth all the more horrific.
What other atrocities should we entirely reverse so as to have a 'pure' childhood?
Maybe we can whitewash Hitler, have Churchill and FDR swap cigars in Munich with him.
In US, curriculum's are different from state to state. SOME children eventually receive the truth, and having learned the truth realize they were lied to by their educators and lose trust in the education system. Other children never learn the truth, and instead argue that there was no genocide because thats what they were taught in school. If the country is willing to make bombs that get dropped on children around the world, then surely we can drop a few truth bombs on our own children.
I see where your coming from but I don't think whitewashing it is the answer...they could've just stated where the settlements were and that native people were displaced it doesn't have to say anything about genocide and can just cover that aspect of it later.
This just sets the wrong framework for the later education your talking about