Comment on Memory Wiped
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day agoReally? The censorship is nowhere near as bad as China.
But there are so many things that just aren’t commonly taught that are atrocious. From the forced sterilisations of disabled people upto the 70s, to US war crimes against civilians, to things like COINTEL PRO.
Sure comparatively (US wise) far left communities seem to be aware of them, like on lemmy, but it’s nowhere in the mainstream US discourse.
We also had discussions on war crimes, though that wasn’t until high school.
This was before 9/11, so the War on Terror had not happened yet. It was mainly focused on Vietnam. We did learn about some of the covert stuff, but most of it was not covered.
I agree none of it is part of mainstream US discourse, but neither is the vast majority of the things covered in history class. This reflects American anti-intellectualism overall imo.
Yeah, there’s a difference between “information that is not discussed because you’ll get a visit from the cops” and “information that is not discussed because, though it’s freely available, people don’t care enough to learn it.”
And where did you learn that in China you’ll be visited by the cops?
You learned if from the very same Western propaganda machine we’re talking about. And you accepted it as fact without a thought.
Its a long list of atrocities and only so much that can fit into a curriculum. Also wildly different standards school to school. My public school in the North East was pretty good about it
The bigger point in the context of this thread, I think, is that none of that is suppressed information. It’s all on Wikipedia! It would be good for your country’s misdeeds to be at least briefly run over in high school, but to say the american government reacts to this kind of thing the same way that the Chinese gov’t does is whackadoodle.
I would say the South’s reactions to critical race theory and it’s own history is verging on information suppression. Still not as bad as explicit as the eula from a Chinese based company though.
That’s probably as close as we get, yeah. Florida is a shit hole.
Just depends on the school I guess. We learned about the massacres of the natives, Vietnam war crimes, the Tuskegee study, etc. Those were off the top of my head but there were more.
ShareMySims@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Still happening, both in US and EU (couldn’t find a good source on the UK, though I don’t doubt it happens, instead have this horrible statistic Disabled people’s Covid-19 death rate as much as 11 times higher than non-disabled people because we’re not seen as worth saving), and certainly in most other countries too.
And this is just disabled people, Indigenous people (in Canada too, of course), immigrants in detention are still being forced/coerced sterilised, as well as several other marginalised groups targeted in different ways (like systemic racism that leads to higher mortality rates of Black birthing parent and babies during and after pregnancy, UK US Canada).
And to go back to what the op of the thread said, the Trail of Tears, is like the tiniest tip of a monstrous iceberg of ongoing genocide, and that monstrous iceberg is just one of many floating in the American ocean of white supremacist atrocity (and before the Americans get defensive, Yes, other countries do atrocities too, yes citizens there/here are also taught a whitewashed version of history that serves to maintain the state, you may not be alone, but you’re absolutely no better than anyone else).
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Fucking hell what a depressing rabbit hole. Thanks for sending.
Proves the point of how erased this shit is!
ShareMySims@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Yeah, unfortunately I’ve been down it before, and the more you look, the worse it gets (I could have included so many more countries and atrocities, but it was too depressing to keep reading through these statistics)…
And you’re exactly right, it’s a reflection of just how much shit gets swept under the rug either by the establishment and its authorities because it reflects badly on them (and tor they don’t want to stop doing whatever horrible thing it is they’ve been getting away with), or by bigots in society who are either happy to remain ignorant, or worse, actively deny anything is happening because the existing structure gives them some level of comfort and privilege (which is of course one of the many ways those in power keep us divided to maintain said power).
The saying goes “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, which is precisely why we aren’t taught it properly (and some of it gets deliberately omitted or even erased).