This post is based mainly on chapter nine of James Loewen’s excellent book, “Lies My Teacher Told Me” (1995):
American history as taught in high school rarely says much about the past 30 years. Partly because teachers rarely reach the end of the book, but partly because it is hard to whitewash the past 30 years.
Loewen takes as his example the Vietnam War – a war America fought from 1965 to 1973. In the early 1990s it still fell within the past 30 years. At that time:
- Most high school history teachers spent less than 5 minutes covering the war.
- Only 2 to 4 percent of university students said they got any solid grounding on it in high school.
But it was not just the fault of the teachers. The textbooks too were part of the silence.
For example, most who are old enough remember these images from the war:
1. A girl running naked down a highway after her village was napalmed:
2. A suspected traitor being shot in the head on the street:
3. A Buddhist monk sets himself on fire in protest:
4. Bodies lying on the ground after the My Lai massacre:
5. Americans leaving Vietnam by helicopter right before the fall of Saigon:
And most remember these words:
“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
“Hell no; we won’t go!”
“Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
“No Viet Cong ever called me a ‘nigger’.”
But all of this was completely missing from most textbooks in the early 1990s. Of the ten high school history books in print in the early 1990s that Loewen looked at, only one had any of it and that one just had the picture of the suspected traitor getting shot. Even though all the books seemed to cover the war.
Seven of them said nothing about My Lai. None showed any of the killing and destruction done by American troops.
Worse still, simple questions were left unanswered, like why America fought, why it lost, what can be learned, why so many Americans protested against the war – all of that was left out.
Some argue we lack “historical perspective”: we are too close to the event to know what all the consequences will be. Things kept secret now will come out later. Etc.
Loewen says the trouble is not that we know too little but that the teachers and parents of the students know way too much. That makes it next to impossible to take one point of view and present it as the truth – which is just the way the rest of American history is taught.
But by not properly teaching the history of the past 30 years, not only do students fail to see how the present grows out of the past, but they are robbed of the knowledge they need to live in that present. Loewen:
Its theft by textbooks and teachers is the most wicked crime schools perpetrate on high school students, depriving them of perspective about the issues that most affect them.
See also:
Those images just sear into your brain. Regarding the My Lai massacre, I quickly referenced wiki (yes, I know), there were three men who made every effort to do the right thing to stop the massacre of innocent people. You would think they would be hailed as heroes, but they were subjected to hate mail and death threats. How screwed up is that?
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Here’s what I wonder.
If we were to be taught this info – all this info – in school, how many WP would actually care?
Because when given this info, I can’t help but notice most white Americans just don’t care. So I don’t think lack of info is the primary problem here. It’s harder to hide info this day in age. WP have the same access to it as everyone else.
They just don’t care.
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My dad was in Vietnam and even he couldn’t explain it to me.
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Paraphrasing-“Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it”
Like Leigh said, these images burn themselves into your minds eye. The picture of those children fleeing for their lives is more than enough to churn my stomach.
The really sad thing about all of this lies in the fact that nothing has changed. Does anyone really think that the men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are that much different from those men who fought during the Vietnam War? How about the US government’s foreign policy? Wikileaks and other independent media have shown us that, no, they aren’t. I can’t wait for American history to ignore or white wash the atrocities that are going on over there.
A lack of “historical perspective” my ***. At the end of the day it’s apparent that white people (and even some POC) will try to ignore the truth, whitewash it, or, if all else fails, be apathetic to it or feign shock and disgust.
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I’m a senior in college now, and I have yet to learn anything about the Vietnam war or the Korean war in a classroom. Everything I know I learned from the internet. I think it has less to do with historical perspective and more to do with the fact that we lost (or at least didn’t win).
On a related note, I remember in 9th grade world history we skipped over all the chapters about Africa, Asia, and South America, and we only learned about European history (Greeks, Romans, etc.). And all throughout elementary and middle school we only learned US history. The result of all this being that I had to learn about Apartheid from a Disney movie and the Vietnam war from Wikipedia.
I actually like reading about history now, but what about the kids who don’t? It’s sad to know that there are kids my age who don’t know anything about these things.
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Cicero-” “To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man’s lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?”
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It is simply put politics. It is no different from the old Eastern Block were history was rewritten suitable for the elite. USA does the same, only more stealth way.
If you guys would learn about Vietnam War, Korean War, and all those other wars US has been involved either directly or by proxy, you would not like what is going on in Irak and Afganistan. There would be a massive antiwar movement now in your country but this way, nobody gives a beep.
Ask yourselves how many of you know how many iraki civilians have been killed in tne years? How many of you know that Irak had the best medical system in Middle East and now has none? How many of you guys know that some 20 billion dollars went missing from Iraki national funds?
You don’t unless you look up it. Nobody is going to tell you.
Nobody is telling you that US troops are killing civilians in Afganistan all the time or that actually not even the US backed afgans really want you guys there. Nobody tells you that US backed afgans are the main movers in the heroin business, same in Pakistan too. Nobody tells you that the only reason to stay in Afganistan are the strategic mineras recently discovered in that country. It also has oil and gas.
The taleban? Gimme a break! Don’t you know that they are US trained resistance fighters from the Soviet-Afgan war? Well, nobody told you that either, did they? Maybe they forgot, like they forgot that Osama Bin Laden was one of those guys too and a saudi with big busines deals with the Bush family and friends way back. They forgot to tell you that too? Surprise!! 😀
See, only the people who do not know the history are doomed to repeat it. Just like you guys did in Vietnam, you did in Irak and will do in Afganistan. That is the reason they do not teach history to you. You would know too much. You would start to think. And they don’t like that.
Just think about Grenada, the major treath to US national security. Yeah, thats what they said. All those cubans and commies prepearing an attack on US. Check it out.
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Judging by the comments, I am surprised to hear that American students learn anything else in history class than WW2. You’re further than the British.
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Why do some people continue to try to paint America in a bad light? I am fully aware that we have made mistakes but let’s present both sides of the story for a change.
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[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dennis Coleman and Clay Boggess, Ankhesen Mié. Ankhesen Mié said: Detestable. http://fb.me/Ah1rnTOu […]
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@clay: I love american food, music, sports, movies, culture, I know some extremely fine americans, I love black american women, I’ve been there in the past for a time etc. Clay, my friend, it is not so much America that people are fed up as it is the US goverment which is doing all kinds of crap in the name of the americans. So when ever people are saying I don’t like USA, they do not mean that everything about US is crappedy crap, they mean your politicians and business leaders etc.
And, to be honest: look at what happened after Katrina! Any country, any country in Europe would have re-build that city in no time. No european goverment would have left those people on their own like yours did. That tells you something, doesn’t it? It is not about the land or the people, it is about the elite and their deeds that cast the shadow upon USA abroad and at home.
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When the Texas Board of Education determines what goes into it school books, so goes the rest of the country. They only do this every ten years and even if they were giving the correct history, most high school students would be behind. When I was in high school almost fifty years ago. the American history books barely mentioned WWI or WWII and that was a war that was won. WWII was considered a just war and the west as heroic in saving the world from the Axis.
Basically high school history books cover very little. I don’t think it is even an effort to make the US look good, but mostly the lack of educators to think history is necessary.
Recently the cry from parents has been get back to the basics and school budgets have cut much of the “unnecessary programs” so history and a lot of other subjects are only surveys.
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This is slightly off-topic, but I just started watching Generation Kill, a mini-series that aired on HBO about a year ago. As a Canadian, I find the levels of dysfunction that happened ( and are probably still happening) in relation to the Iraq war, extremely interesting and wonder if there was any blow back from the media when this aired.
The reason why I wonder is because a) this was based on a real-life account written by someone who was a Marine in Iraq; and b) it is pretty scathing – painting the Marines as a group of people in which a small handful questioned their reasoning for being there. The rest are portrayed as sociopaths, dudes who are just about to go postal and shoot everyone in sight, rabid racists and those who are more concerned with making a name for themselves than avoiding killing innocent Iraqi women and children.
The American government had limited the spending on weapons and devices that would keep the Marines safe – and so they could do their job – and while the show is entertaining and informative, it really does paint an awful picture of how these soldiers got screwed. I just wonder if American teachers would ever really critique the shitshow the Iraqi war is. The series is really is a good account of human behaviour.
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In all my years in school I was never taught anything about the Vietnam war. Nothing. Come to think of it, I don’t think I was ever taught about anything that was recent.
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How ironic that you bring this up, since you’re clearly ignorant of the numerous crimes committed by the ‘Peoples Army’ in Vietnam, from the murderous land reforms to the purge after America finally pulled out (because hippies forced withdrawal from a winnable war that was mismanaged by Democrat whiz-kids).
Ironic, also, that you don’t notice we aren’t taught anything about the Korean War, in which UN forces (mostly American) stopped an attempted Communist takeover of South Korea.
We also don’t hear about the Communist purges in Russia, or Mao’s murderous revolution in China. Doesn’t fit your narrative, though, so must not matter.
It’s okay. We can always rely on left-wing douchebags like you to cherry pick anti-American bullshit from the past 30 years and cry that our schools aren’t running down the country enough to appease you.
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Sadly, all I remember learning in American History is Christopher Columbus, a few minutes of talk on various wars, Christopher Columbus and a few other points that everybody in America learns. There was nothing taught about African American history except Malcolm X, MLK etc.
So reflecting on what I learned in History class in high school I would say nothing was lectured on or taught enough for student to really learn anything…
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@Black Girl Thinking… ditto. According to my high school education, there were only two people in the entire civil rights movement… MLK & Rosa Parks.
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@atheist conservative:
In Vietnam US troops killed around one million civilians.
In Irak US troops killed around 350 000 civilians.
In Korea US troops also killed tens of thousands of civilians including refugees from North (many these incidents have been documented, you can find them with little effort).
Nobody is denying that US soldiers were very much part of the effort that helped to stop the nazis, which kept the commies at bay in some parts of the world, but don’t think for a second that US military is the knight in shining armour. It isn’t and it never was. To claim so, is to reveal how little you actually know about the subject and wars in general. Wars are terrible things and soldiers are forced to do terrible things. Sometimes plain wrong things. You don’t believe me? Check out My Lai massacre.
You seem to believe that war in Vietnam could have been won. Maybe you watched too many Rambo movies. The truth is you lost. In Paris peace talks american general boasted to vietnamese general Giap how american troops never lost a single battle against the vietnamese (not true), and general Giap answered: That may be so, but you lost the whole war.
The truth about Vietnam War is this: the only way to win was to kill at least half of the population. The only way to win was to invade the North Vietnam. These were not done because war is always political and they were not options. Also, US military was already in dire straits. Its troops were raw recruits, morale was down at the bottom, they were loosing machinery at the rate which was unsustainable and the opposition was gaining momentum. So I can not see how US military could have won that war without nuclear weapons.
You claim that Vietnam War was run by democrat whizz-kids and that the hippies forced you out. In both cases you are wrong. War was run very largely by the CIA from the late 1950’s to early 1970’s. US military believed that it ran the show but it was depended on CIA all the time and CIA was running its own show in all over the South East Asia (Laos, Cambodia etc). And if a bunch of long haired peacenicks “forced” your military out, well…
Lets just say that vietnamese guerillas were likely much tuffer guys than joint puffin rich kids “droppin out and tunin in” in american collges and universities.
PS. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, you know the commies who killed at least one million people. They were US backed force. That is right. The fell when the vietnamese (yes, the same commies who kicked you guys out) attacked them. USA backed Pol Pots ultra terrorist communist goverment in UN and all over the place. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Yeap. USA armed, trained and funded the mujaheddin who were fighting the soviets in Afganistan. And yes, one of them was a guy named Osama bin Laden. And funny thing, the mujahedin said in the 80’s that first they bring down the Soviet Union and after that they win USA. And were are the US troops now?
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hey abagond, If the history teachers truly taught the goings on within america in the last thirty years all of your racist arguments would have millions of holes in them. look at black on white vs white on black violent crime statistics within those years. you are like 50 times more likely to hurt me for no reason or my peaceful family than I am you. and I am part of what the old time people would call a commoner.slightly below middle class white with irish and italian desent. All of my anscestors came here either to escape persicusion , war, or the irish potato famine. nothing to do with the ruling class of america and we are the people who get hurt the most by angry blacks in the inner cities.
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@dave: Grow up, my fellow white man! Unless you live in a ghetto or in a slum, you won’t be in specially great danger and, I assume, you do not live among the blacks nor in a ghetto, so c’moon.
Most black crime in the US is black on black. That is an absolute fact. If you happen to live in all black neighbourhood you might get targeted because of colour but most likely you would have no more reason to worry than any of your neighbours. Like Dave Chapelle said in one of his best bits: “we n****s don’t like to live in a ghetto either. We scared there!”
I just wonder what is really behind your hysterics here. Did you get mugged by a black guy? Robbed by a black guy? Did you beat up a black guy and cops took you away? Or did the black guy beat you up and cops beat you up and took you to jail? I mean, that is so weird, my friend.
I have personal experiences how cops treat the minorities in US, I just happened to be on the scene, and let me tell you Dave, they do not serve courtesies there.
One of the basic things about facistic mentality is fear. So watch it Dave, somebody is propably benefitting of your fears and duly pouring gasoline on those flames. Just to make you do what they want via media.
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Dave:
Like Sam said, the higher black crime rate threatens blacks, not whites. Most of the crime against white people is done by white people. For example, a white American is six times more likely to be murdered by a white person than a black person.
As for hate crimes, despite all you hear about Islamophobia and homophobia in the news, most hate crimes are still done against blacks and Jews and done mainly by whites.
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hey abagond, If the history teachers truly taught the goings on within america in the last thirty years all of your racist arguments would have millions of holes in them. look at black on white vs white on black violent crime statistics within those years.
This isn’t about crime stats, it’s about history or lack thereof, taught in high schools or schools, capeche?
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Abagond,
Some argue we lack “historical perspective”: we are too close to the event to know what all the consequences will be.
Loewen says the trouble is not that we know too little but that the teachers and parents of the students know way too much.
Actually, these two basically refer to the same thing. Having a historical perspective means being OUTSIDE of it, looking to it not from this time and place and situation, but from another. Some argue this other position is the more objective and more informative one. But it’s not the case.
History, the way it’s taught, is just another construct. It is not the truth, it is not the real, objective thing. It’s written by specific people (the winners), with a specific goal.
To live in this time and place, to be a witness and know what is going on (firsthand, with your own experience, no matter how personal, or subjective it may be) is much different than to read about it in the books or hear on the news, or to have a historical perspective.
I know it. Been there, done that.
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I am a high school history teacher and I can tell you that there are several reasons why the last 30 years are not really taught in history classes. At this point the past 30 years would actually be cut off at 1980. These are the major reasons that I can surmise as to the lock out of the past 30 years-
1. The books are all aligned to tests that the students must pass to graduate high school. These tests don’t really ask a lot of stuff on the past 30 years. We do however cover a lot of the Vietnam war because that gets asked a lot under the umbrella of communism.
2. There is simply not enough time in the school year to cover in US history over 200 years and in 2 years the entire history of the world in Global History.
3. Whitewashing happens a lot because let’s face it history is written by those who win and rampant racism has ruled the world for quite some time.
I can honestly say that I have never learned about in a classroom or taught the crack epidemic, Ronald Reagan’s economic policies, HIV/AIDS, the dot.com rise, etc. (past 30 years).
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I’ve come to the conclusion that overall, history in general is grotesquely one-sided. It has been written, rewritten, and re-re-re-rewritten by those who feel the need to elevate some and denigrate/subjugate/erase others.
I’m reading The History of White People and see exactly where the term “whitewashing” came from! It’s a fascinating read…
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The second photo doesn’t depict an innocent civilian being shot but a brutal war criminal who deserved his comeuppance:
http://failuremag.com/index.php/feature/article/saigon_execution/
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OMG, oh yes, when I was in High school in the late 70s, history basically stopped at the end of WWII. I learned nothing about stuff like Jim Crow, Brown vs. Board, the civil rights movement, McCarthyism, the cold war, the vietnam war, the dismantling of the urban rail systems, etc. I didn’t even know that my parents’ marriage was illegal when we moved into one of those states and why we could never travel around. I only learned it AFTER high school when I studied it myself. Gee, I had no idea how long television had been around.
Now, I guess now it is OK to teach about Emmett Till, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. It is OK to teach about the Lovings and the 1967 repeal, about blockbusting and desegregation and the rise of affirmative action as well as Roe vs. Wade. Vietnam war is perfectly fine now, as is Watergate as well as the six day war. We can now learn all about the history of the US space program (but not beyond the 1986 Challenger incident) and about apartheid in South Africa.
We still have to wait a few years to learn about AIDS, Personal computers, the internet, why the manufacturing industry has largely left the USA. Vincent Chin is now OK, but just barely.
@liveloveteach
I actually am also disturbed how little of US history is taught pre-1776, esp. pre-1607. There is nothing taught about the southwest pre-1848, about Florida pre-1819 and nothing about the Midwest pre-1803. Did California only magically appear during the Gold Rush?
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History is one sided. We called Native Americans savages, knowing full well that our soldiers invaded their lands, killed their men, and raped their women and childeren. If they were savage it was to avenge their brothers. We created the evil. And then we use that evil against them.
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Less than 3 days left until the 30th anniversary of the infamous event in the capital, the event that no one is allowed to talk about.
Not only have history books never covered this event, any discussion of it is scrubbed clean.
Young people under age 30 do not even really know about it. Or they think it is something that foreigners made up.
That Day
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