You Cannot Ignore the Facts of History
European settlers violated the self-governing territory of Native Americans by bringing in enslaved Black Africans and putting the so-called “civilized tribes” in a position to own Black slaves. The Choctaw tribe was perhaps the most brutal toward Black slaves as they adopted “white ways.” Moreover, the crimes of genocide and slavery were ultimately practiced by white settlers, which paved the way for the eventual creation of the United States. Religious intolerance, that was so characteristic of Europe for over five hundred years, bled over into the American colonies. Religious hatred existed in all of the American colonies, and in the 1600s the British colonies were rife with religious killings, jailings, and torture. If one was a Catholic in a Protestant Colony, or vice versa, there would be religious hatred.
Religion Replaced by Race Under White Supremacy
In due course, these religious hatreds were transformed under the power of white supremacy, as darker skin color became the racial marker for an inferior status instead of religion. Eventually, the idea of freedom of religion was used to coalesce racial hatreds as a replacement for religious hatred. Freedom of religion was a way to unite Europeans from different religions and enshrine hatred for people of color. The idea that America is unique has always been false as there was never freedom and justice for ALL!
Post-Revolution Expansion and White Supremacy
After the American revolution, not only was white supremacy coded to thinking but so was classism as poor whites who supported the British fled south into the Appalachian Mountains. Poor whites from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and other slave holding states, saw Texas as a dream come true. Slavery and the oppression of Indigenous People was a way to redeem themselves for supporting the British and hence the flood of white settlers, with slaves or seeking slave ownership and land. Of course, the white supremacists of today are trying to take us back to the false history they want to renew. Many in the older generation of today’s racially minded folks might want to believe the ridiculous rendition of “tough rugged individuals” that created the United States without any mention of the work that slaves and Native People were forced to do.
The Reality of Who Built America
Black people built the mansions that the lazy slave owners lived in, and picked the crops that they ate. Native Americans built the roads and cut the trails before Columbus ever got here by mistake. Many Black women often raised the children of the slave masters and cooked their food (sometimes poising them) while Black men were often worked or beaten to death in the fields while picking cotton and other crops. Yet, this is was scares modern conservatives who want to erase this part of the ugly history of America and pretend it did not happen. This is part of the effort to erase the true history of the United States and renew the older false conceptions of a white supremacist history that ruled social studies classes for centuries.
Rejecting the Erasure of American Truth
One cannot talk about American history without talking about Black history, Brown history, Native history, Asian history, and others. To deny these facts is propaganda aimed at promoting a white supremacist history for future generations. They did this for years until the resistance of the Civil Rights Movement changed the discussion. This is what they want to destroy, the true history of America that is not an example of “American exceptionalism,” unless one wants to ignore the past. The idea of “American exceptionalism” has been a justification for foreign policy interventions and a denial of the nation’s flaws; a false quick fix idea.
