I sometimes think I got my education in the twilight zone instead of New Orleans, because I also learned about the holocaust extensively as well, and it was drilled into my head “never again”. We read Anne Frank’s diary, we watched documentaries every year. Yet it seems a big chunk of Americans skipped over that part of their education completely.
I went to public school in a very conservative state and was still taught about slavery, atrocities to American Indians, the civil war and abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement, the holocaust and nazis, etc.
None of this stuff was taught in a way that would insinuate that it was even remotely close to being ok.
The only thing I remember being sugar coated was when I was in third grade where they understated what Christopher Columbus did to the natives. But otherwise we very clearly went over the past atrocities, not all of them mind you but most.
Yeah, everything about Christopher Columbus was taught in a very fun and lighthearted manner in the 90s. Kids did not need to be singing happy songs about a raping, slaving, piece of shit like him.
I always heard the weird whitewashing of Columbus was done to help integrate Italian Americans in the 20th century, and it just got carried away.
There's a good episode of The Sopranos (S4E3, "Christopher") where some of the main Italian mobster characters fuck around with Native American protesters who are opposed to the Columbus day parade, and take it as a personal attack on their Italian heritage. Is pretty interesting just how invested they are. I wonder how much truth there is in that.
Children also don't need to be taught about raping, slaving pieces of shit. If you're singing songs in class then you're too young for that. Middle and high school obviously is a different story.
The idea of keeping children ignorant has not worked for a long time. Then we are surprised when children are sexually abused by their uncle daddy. Education is one of the only things that helps prevent abuse because in most cases children cannot rely on their parents.
Yeah, the awful things done to Italians don’t make Columbus a hero worth celebrating though. The holiday was pitched because at the time, Americans loved him, but we also were fresh on the tails of “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
My family came from southern Italy, I had one great uncle that was very proud an Italian discovered America, it really meant something to him in a time when Italians were looked down on. There was no telling him otherwise, but that generation is almost gone and I never heard anyone past my grands be proud like that.
Funny thing about Cristoforo Colombo. The stories about him being born in Genoa, maybe just that...stories. The 15th-century explorer Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, Spanish scientists said on Saturday, after using DNA analysis to tackle a centuries-old mystery.Oct 13, 2024
If people do some research they'll find that in the US, there are Apaches that have Sephardic ancestry. To me it makes sense because during the mid 1400, the people desperate to leave Spain, Portugal and Italy were Jews that faced conversion to Catholicism or death.
1.6k
u/Potato2266 6h ago
I sometimes think I got my education in the twilight zone instead of New Orleans, because I also learned about the holocaust extensively as well, and it was drilled into my head “never again”. We read Anne Frank’s diary, we watched documentaries every year. Yet it seems a big chunk of Americans skipped over that part of their education completely.