In Nebraska, there is a community searching for answers. They are looking for a cemetery on the grounds of a US Indian Genoa Industrial school. This school was one of many in a network of church-run schools in the US run under the guise of education. These schools were created in the 19th and 20th century to assimilate indigenous children into the white man's world. by 1926, as many as 83% of the Native America population's children were enrolled in these residential schools. Children were taken forcibly from their parents with prison time threatened if they did not comply. The Native American population experienced another genocidal era in their peoples' history during the time of operation of these state-sanctioned religious schools. It is estimated that tens of thousands of children died at these institutions in the United States and Canada. The survivors of these schools remember the physical abuse. They were not happy school atmospheres. These institutions operated like prison encampments. They remember being punished for speaking their language. The motto of these institutions was, "kill the indian, save the man." It is evident that no good could come of these state-sanctioned religious institutions. Another way in which the Christian religion would oppress another people that they deemed "inferior" because they did not look like them, talk like them, act like them, or believe in their God. Forcible indoctrination was the method by which they took the Native American culture from an already violent and genocidal history, to another attempt at wiping them out completely. This is an important part of American history. This is an untold story that I did not learn about in my AP U.S. History class in the 90s. We learned that when Europeans came to the Americas, they unintentionally wiped out large percentages of the Native American populations by bringing over small pox. We did not learn at that time that it was also intentionally given to Native American villages through infected blankets given as gifts as a type of biological warfare. We learned a little about the the Trail of Tears and that they were moved and moved and pushed into smaller sections of land as settlers came in and claimed land that wasn't theirs because Native Americans had no concept of land ownership in their culture. We did not learn of the waves of succeeding attempts at wiping out the Native Americans in various ways. It's no wonder that the indigenous tribes of this country have so little trust for the ones who took their land from them. The history of the residential schools is just another facet to their story. This is another part of the making of this country that must make its way into our educational system. This is a part of our history. We can't just teach the times when we were good and did the right thing. We have to show all sides of the story. Hiding these stories breeds distrust in our society and we need to bring light to a part of our society that has been decimated for hundreds of years unjustifiably. We need to teach that this was wrong. That it's not ok to disrespect the beliefs, culture, and community of others. The history of oppression in the United States is one that patriotic people fear. It means that something that they have been trained to be so proud of, that they are supposed to be one of the good guys in the world. This identity that they hold on to is not only not the full picture, but just not true at all. Like it or not, there has been a lot of oppression in this country to make it what it is today. History is written by the men in power. Rarely is it written from a peoples' perspective with the exception of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. The fact is, we are using resources and living on the land that was stolen from indigenous people and the world-class economy of this country was built on the backs of slaves. Why does this truth threaten so many to their core? What is it called when people cannot take in new facts and change their minds about a concept? Cognitive dissonance? Or is it just willful ignorance? 5/17/2022 0 Comments the alpinistmarc andre
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