My point wasn’t at all that these cultures haven’t been victim to colonization and genocide, but that they are still around today and not vanished. A common refrain I hear from many indigenous people is that it’s important for people to know they still exist, and I always try to put that information out there.
i don’t disagree, but how much of that culture was lost-- how many cities burned, writings, works of art, histories-- people could have moved to the new world without killing millions of the people who already lived here, and forcing their own culture on all the rest
Absolutely, it’s terrible and that loss is irreplaceable. I don’t want to diminish that truth at all, just to respect the indigenous people that want to emphasize their continued survivance.
Speaking of the Mayas, check out EZLN. I was at Zapatista’s schools in the high mountains of Chiapas and it was amazing to me seeing how they live there and how they reference themselves, individually, as inheritors of Mayan culture…
Damn, I wish I’d known about that when I was writing a paper about Paulo Freire last semester! It sounds, if not identical to his problem-posing education, very much founded in the same spirit.
My point wasn’t at all that these cultures haven’t been victim to colonization and genocide, but that they are still around today and not vanished. A common refrain I hear from many indigenous people is that it’s important for people to know they still exist, and I always try to put that information out there.
i don’t disagree, but how much of that culture was lost-- how many cities burned, writings, works of art, histories-- people could have moved to the new world without killing millions of the people who already lived here, and forcing their own culture on all the rest
Absolutely, it’s terrible and that loss is irreplaceable. I don’t want to diminish that truth at all, just to respect the indigenous people that want to emphasize their continued survivance.
Speaking of the Mayas, check out EZLN. I was at Zapatista’s schools in the high mountains of Chiapas and it was amazing to me seeing how they live there and how they reference themselves, individually, as inheritors of Mayan culture…
Damn, I wish I’d known about that when I was writing a paper about Paulo Freire last semester! It sounds, if not identical to his problem-posing education, very much founded in the same spirit.