Hearing the Truth
America, the greatest country on Earth. We beat the British, conquered the West, singlehandedly won two World Wars, took down Communism, and are currently kicking the terrorists in their collective behinds.
Maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but I am not too far away from the truth. In our country, events tend to be portrayed in a more favorable light than the truth may actually be. It seems that oftentimes, events in our past are simply brushed away, barely talked about, or somehow justified in a way that tries to absolve us of the crime. The question is, is this the way classes should be operated? Or should we portray America in a more truthful fashion?
America is undoubtedly a great country. It is undoubtedly one of the greatest in the world, and has many things about it both currently and historically that have made it great. But, it is impossible to say that America doesn’t have problems, or has never done any wrong. There are numerous examples that can be brought up, such as huge income inequalities throughout history, slavery, anti-immigrant sentiments, and the treatment of Native Americans. History classes, besides slavery, for the most part brush over these things. How many of you knew of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which explicitly banned immigrants from China? What about the harsh treatment of workers in our country, which took two centuries to improve, and could still use improvement? These are all things that only briefly get mentioned, or never get mentioned at all. These things deserve mention, and should be explained.
Our children need a full understanding of history, both the good and the bad, to fully understand that. Without the full story, what is the point of even teaching history? Besides that, there is the fact that portraying America in only a positive light is a bad idea. One of the key duties of the citizen is to be the watchdog of the government. In this way, we keep the government from taking the power away from us. However, putting the idea that America is infallible into the minds of our youth is counterintuitive to this idea. We need to understand that the government can make mistakes, so we can watch them to help prevent future mistakes. Furthering that point, there is the age old adage, “Those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it.” To prevent history from repeating itself, we must understand history. If we don’t understand history, we can’t stop the atrocities of the past from happening again.
All of that being said, we must not forget the good. Or the bad. We must know it all to understand it, to understand how it happened, and to either do more of the same, or prevent it from ever happening again. History is our story. Where we are and how we got there. Leaving out parts because they are inconvenient is not only dangerous, but it means we are betraying ourselves, and everything that we are.