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Sunday, November 24, 2024
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‘DON’T TELL THEM THE TRUTH’

Truthful History Must Taught

The past can never be dead and buried in this country as it is filled with horrible crimes of racism that have not been discussed.  Many educational institutions still avoid the subject and public-school text books are still filled with false stories about many things. Racial minded governors like DeSantis in Florida and Abbott in Texas are trying to erase the true history of America. There was never ever freedom and justice for all, as people like to pretend when they say the pledge of allegiance or sing the National Anthem. Freedom and justice for all only applied to whites in this country and did not have even apply to poor whites. We will no longer allow a false history to be taught no matter what racialize governors and legislatures try to hide.

“We the People”? What people? When we talk about the US constitution and the words, “We the people,” it was quite clear that the “people” that the writers of the constitution were talking about were white male property owners. They built a society only for whites—first slavery and then Jim Crow law proves this point. African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, women, and impoverished whites did not fit into the formula of “We the people.” This racial formula, was an agreement between white people, against Black people and other people of color. A white supremacist society, in which white people control most of the power, wealth, and privilege was created. This caused non-whites to be viewed as subhuman who do not merit similar privileges afforded to Europeans. White supremacy created a government run by white people, for white people, and divided humanity along color lines. Race began to trump class and explains the reason why whites supported the slave owners during the Civil War even though most whites owned no slaves. The end of slavery would have meant loss of white superiority.

During the early part of the 1800s the United States engaged in the “Indian Removal Act.” This racist law was enforced by perhaps one of America’s most racist presidents, Andrew Jackson. Under this federal law Native Americans were removed from their homes, slaughtered, and placed in camps called reservations in a genocidal crime.  The idea was to murder or remove Native People, steal their land, and replace them with plantations and slavery. African Americans were murdered by the thousands, and most of those killers were never punished because of the philosophy of white supremacy that ruled the United States for centuries. White supremacy was so entrenched that one cannot speak of American presidents without recognizing that many of them owned slaves, even while many opposed it even during their time.

After the Civil War, there was an attempt to right the wrongs of slavery. This attempt was called “Reconstruction. “The progress made during this period was defeated when President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South thereby enabling the former slave owners to re-enslave blacks all over again by using Jim Crow legislation. One should note that George Washington owned between 250 and 350 slaves, Thomas Jefferson owned about 200, James Madison owned more than 100, James Monroe owned about 75, the Indian murderer Andrew Jackson owned almost 200, Martin Van Buren had one we know about, William Henry Harrison had eleven, John Tyler owned about 70, James Polk had approximately 25, Zachary Taylor about 150, Andrew Johnson about eight, and Ulysses S. Grant approximately five.  These presidents were men suckered by the times and were too cowardly to be men above the times.

Mario Salas
Mario Salashttps://saobserver.com/
Professor Mario Marcel Salas is a retired Assistant Professor of Political Science, having taught Texas Politics, Federal Politics, Political History, the Politics of Mexico, African American Studies, Civil Rights, and International Conflicts. He has served as a City Councilman for the City of San Antonio, and was very active in the Civil Rights Movement in SNCC for many years. He is also a life time member of the San Antonio NAACP. He has authored several editorials, op-eds, and writings.

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