Are americans taught about the "shadiest" aspects of their history in school?
Like, if I ask a good student from a decent school that is about to graduate, would he know basic shit like Gulf of Tonkin, Nayirah, Batista, shit like the government using organized crime against the Panthers, etc?
And I'm not asking if he might know because he could have read about in on the internet. I'm asking if the teachers explained this shit, if it's featured in a honest way on history textbooks, etc.
I come from a small school in Texas. It seems like all the history classes stop after World War II. The textbook keeps going, but ignores all of that stuff.
I read about the Panthers, but only in so far as that they were the "wrong" guys for advocating people be ready to use violent resistance against violence, compared to Saint MLK who totally did not at all preach socialism.
In my experience the answer would be yes, for the 19th century at least. The Independence War is romanticized but African slavery as well as the ruthless attacks on Indians and Mexico are covered. But once it hits the 20th suddenly the American state is a knight in shining armor, a global champion of liberty against communism and fascism. After the 1898 war US imperialism is totally glossed over.
Do you guys think social movements, activists and so on should be fighting to put all that shit into textbooks?
A critical perspective of the past is the best way to ensure better judgement in the future imo.
Why do that when we could be fighting for freedom
Once a student gets to a university, there is no end to the postcolonial bawwwwing about the plight of the subaltern at the hands of the evil white man. Beyond that, there is very little said about real imperialism.
idpol, not even once.
Proof that post-colonialism promotes liberalism at the expense of socialism.
Not really. I mean there's slavery and indians, but there was pretty much nothing after that. Admittedly I started to do a lot more drugs and focused more on fucking girls and my shitty punk band than school when we were covering that shit. But I would get at least a "B" on my tests so I'm pretty sure I got the gist of it.
t. Houstonfag
High school in the States is so fucked. I made it a point to do absolutely none of the work in my senior year just to see if I could pass anyway by acing the tests. It worked, and I finished with a B.