Are we exceptional or do we need a little more humility?

Above - Map showing Indian Tribes in US Estimate population pre-contact for all of the Americas as high as 112 million indigenous people


Map of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade https://worldmap.harvard.edu/maps/1374

The USA has a history that is often glamorized for our robust and vigorous democracy and opportunities afforded for people to live in freedom, and with rights and liberties.
Actually, it is a country that began with European contact by white people who actually invaded in the 1500 and 1600s, established colonies, prospered with the institution of slavery and indentured servitude, wrested lands away from the Native American's by forced removal, genocide and false treaties, fought a Civil War over the institution of slavery, which ended slavery, allowed the southern states to terrorize negroes through agencies like KKK and created segregation laws and practices, suffered an economic depression, fought WW II interning Japanese Americans while utilizing negroes, Japanese Americans, American Indians in the war effort, won the war with the help of our allies, helped rebuild and feed our former Axis enemies, and still moved into the 1960's with lynchings of negroes in the southern states, Jim Crow laws institutionalizing segregation and denying negroes their basic human rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

Greed, inhumane and oppressive behavior to non-whites over the centuries, blind ambition and selfish motives among some our leaders, corruption in government practices and activities and many of our financial and business institutions, are the cultural characteristics that dominate modern America. We American citizens have to face, deal with urgency, and somehow find the courage and wisdom, to eradicate and control, or our nation and the ideals we believe are part of our identity will cease to exist.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 22, 2017 at 10:02 AM

    After all is said about our non-glamorized history, it still is the country that keeps hope alive for a free and just society. Sure this country has a lot to be ashamed about in the past and now. However, this country has accomplished much in this world with good leadership. Marshall Plan, Gates Foundation, technology advances, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, resistance to the spread of Communism, improved environment through clean air, clean water legislation, and it goes on.

    However, I also am concerned about the future of this country. Too many Americans have too small an attention span to seriously consider the issues facing this country. They want to get their news bites in 5 second reposting on Facebook and are only interested in news that reinforces their own beliefs. False news and right/left wings diatribes are insidious to the health of our nation. The current environment of no middle ground and lack of compromise are some of the most serious threats to our nation's solving of our problems. Our current president who shall not be named is not the leader we need. I cannot understand the 40% who support this man who has no business being the president for many reasons that I need several pages to illustrate. We have finished touring all of the Presidential Libraries and all of our previous presidents in the 20th century had great skills that were applied to governing this country with some success. Our current president is not close to stature, intelligence, and morality of our previous presidents. Someday, he will have a presidential library but it will just be a kiosk at Trump tower selling red ball caps. But I digress.

    I hope Winston Churchill is still correct when he said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

    ReplyDelete

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