Tag: American History

Indigenous

Trump Says Settlers ‘Tamed a Continent.’ Now for the Other Side.

Members of the Coeur d’Alene, or Schitsu’umsh, Tribe on the Desmet Reservation in Idaho circa 1907. (Wikimedia Commons)

This knowledge seems rudimentary, and yet it’s not: The same ships that transported the “American dream” from 15th century Europe likewise delivered a nightmare to indigenous lands now known as America—a nightmare that would persist for centuries for millions of indigenous people, African slaves and their many descendants. But it was far beyond a nightmare. It all was callously and painfully real.

This knowledge also seems rudimentary, and yet it’s not: Indigenous communities today bear the stubborn scars and residual societal ills stemming directly from colonization: being dehumanized, disenfranchised and imprisoned in our own lands, confined to desolate reservations, and brutally ripped from the lifeways and teachings that sustained us for millennia.

via Trump Says Settlers ‘Tamed a Continent.’ Now for the Other Side.

Fascism

Fighting White Supremacy Means Owning Up to American History | The Nation

 

Trump’s failure to swiftly condemn racist violence is appalling. But he’s right that it’s always been part of this country’s story.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Southern slaveholders said the Bible compelled them to hold slaves—that, in fact, civilizing black people was a good Christian way of “liberating” them from savagery. “Christians across the Confederacy were convinced that they were called not only to perpetuate slavery but also to ‘perfect’ it. And they understood the Bible to provide clear moral guidelines on how

to properly practice it,” wrote Thom Bassett in The New York Times.

Source: Fighting White Supremacy Means Owning Up to American History | The Nation