• SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Question to American comrades: How are the genocides of native Americans and Lebensraum manifest destiny being taught in American schools? What does the average American know?

    • jetsetdorito@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I remember being taught that it was just their desire to expand to the Pacific Ocean, they believed it was their god given destiny. Big focus on that. I don’t recall a lot of all of emphasis on how it impacted the natives.

    • uralsolo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I seem to remember getting a very centrist version of the Native American Genocide. Crimes committed against the Native Americans by colonists were skimmed over in brief, settlement of land was described as a net positive because the GDP went up and railroads got built, there was a little bit of time spent on the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears, and then it was on to talking about the Mexican-American War and Native Americans never got mentioned again after that.

    • Othello [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      every year in elementary school we watched some movies about how the pilgrims and Indians were friends and every year I would get in trouble for screaming “AND THEN THEY MURDERED THEM ALL”. teachers would get mad and say that it was both sides fault. and then we hit middle school and got the full story, but teachers would both sides it. Also most of my peers one year believed that the genocide of the native Americans was good, needed to happen, and that they would do it again. then i went to a super libby highschool and learned even more.

    • NotErisma [they/them, any]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      My school rushed all the events of US history, “manifest destiny” was no exception and was merely a brief footnote, though the trail of tears was mentioned.

    • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I was taught in Jersey and Florida during the 80’s and then 90"s, and manifest destiny was taught as a good thing. Anything resembling truth I got out schooling came from subversive teachers, not the official school curriculum. It wasn’t till I read Zinn and Lowen that I learned how badly I was lied to.

    • ComradeKhoumrag@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      I learned Christopher Columbus would chop the hands off of indians that didn’t follow orders, and we wiped out 95% plus of their population

      But I went to school in California. Unfortunately, other states can teach their version of history

    • player2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      I think it’s common knowledge that the settlers stole the land and killed all of the native Americans. In many cities that are on historically important tribal grounds, meetings and events are started with an acknowledgment of how the land was stolen from those people.

      There was a recent lawsuit trying to return all Oklahoma stolen land to those tribes. It is very much in American consciousness but it is so far in the past no one takes responsibility.