Lies My Teacher Told Me (Chapter 4 and 5)
Chapter 2 and 3 have been bringing up Native Americans and chapter 4 talks about them even further. According to Loewen, the way textbook describes Native Americans has improved recently but textbook authors still need to relearn this part of the history because some textbooks still elucidate Native people using terms like "half-breed", "primitive" or "savage". Loewen's logic is that if they prefer to use such aggressive terms for Natives, then whites deserve to be described as "invaders", not "civilized."
The term "civilized" is quite hard to define, but is usually used as an antonym of indigenous, primitive or tribal and signifies more advanced human cultures. If the textbook authors really want to use this term to describe the European culture, they need to have some evidences. However, how was the reality? After contact with Europeans, American Indian societies certainly changed; they took new weapons, foods, languages, construction methods and religious ideas into their cultures. The thing is, Europeans also had a lot to learn from Indians and even relied on Natives' trades because it became easier to trade for food than grow it. These two groups were definitely in mutual or even syncretistic relationships. This is not fair to call just whites "civilized", and conceal this mutual accommodation on textbooks. Even more unforgivable fact is that in return for the support from Natives, Europeans moved on to enslavement of Natives. Most textbooks do not even mention Native Americans slave trade. This is simply returning evil for good. Their tendency of obliterating the existence and accomplishments of Indians is distinct; for example, we've never learned that American Indians were directly or indirectly responsible for the public-meeting tradition, freedom of speech, or even democracy, which are the basis of the American government today. Moreover, most textbooks do not mention contributions of Native Americans to American culture, such as regional cuisines. I was surprised that even in describing the French and Indian War, some textbooks leave out the Indians. And today, European textbook authors leave out the multicultural nature and don't give any credits to Natives as if they do want to exclude the existence of Natives from American history.
Chapter 5 is closely related to chapter 4 in terms of racism, but focuses more on another race, African Americans. My reaction for this chapter was a bit different from other chapters since I was surprised with how this topic is generally taught in U.S., not what actually happened. In other words, when I learned about slavery and slave trades, the lecture also focused on the harsh conditions and treatments of slaves. We even watched a video on a documentary with painful depiction of slaves being whipped and abused. Even about the Civil War in 1860's, many people might be thinking it was the confrontation between the South, who were supporting slavery, and the North, who were against the slavery. My history teacher in sophomore year taught us in the first lesson that this is a wrong interpretation. The North was never against slavery, but did not want it to be expanded into their territories. As I recall, I could learn these accurate historical facts probably because my high school was in the town where a lot of African Americans resided. We also had the Black History Month, so our school might've intended to teach "true" history about black people as much as possible. My high school had probably provided a good environment. However, I was taught that Lincoln was a hero for freeing slaves, but his Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves only in states in rebellion against the United States. It was not a universal declaration. Lincoln did not even have an intention to do that.
These two chapters focused on how racism influenced the content of textbook. Although this might be a hindrance for European authors, but they have to deal with that dilemma for students who have both responsibilities and rights to learn accurately.
Chapter 2 and 3 have been bringing up Native Americans and chapter 4 talks about them even further. According to Loewen, the way textbook describes Native Americans has improved recently but textbook authors still need to relearn this part of the history because some textbooks still elucidate Native people using terms like "half-breed", "primitive" or "savage". Loewen's logic is that if they prefer to use such aggressive terms for Natives, then whites deserve to be described as "invaders", not "civilized."
The term "civilized" is quite hard to define, but is usually used as an antonym of indigenous, primitive or tribal and signifies more advanced human cultures. If the textbook authors really want to use this term to describe the European culture, they need to have some evidences. However, how was the reality? After contact with Europeans, American Indian societies certainly changed; they took new weapons, foods, languages, construction methods and religious ideas into their cultures. The thing is, Europeans also had a lot to learn from Indians and even relied on Natives' trades because it became easier to trade for food than grow it. These two groups were definitely in mutual or even syncretistic relationships. This is not fair to call just whites "civilized", and conceal this mutual accommodation on textbooks. Even more unforgivable fact is that in return for the support from Natives, Europeans moved on to enslavement of Natives. Most textbooks do not even mention Native Americans slave trade. This is simply returning evil for good. Their tendency of obliterating the existence and accomplishments of Indians is distinct; for example, we've never learned that American Indians were directly or indirectly responsible for the public-meeting tradition, freedom of speech, or even democracy, which are the basis of the American government today. Moreover, most textbooks do not mention contributions of Native Americans to American culture, such as regional cuisines. I was surprised that even in describing the French and Indian War, some textbooks leave out the Indians. And today, European textbook authors leave out the multicultural nature and don't give any credits to Natives as if they do want to exclude the existence of Natives from American history.
Chapter 5 is closely related to chapter 4 in terms of racism, but focuses more on another race, African Americans. My reaction for this chapter was a bit different from other chapters since I was surprised with how this topic is generally taught in U.S., not what actually happened. In other words, when I learned about slavery and slave trades, the lecture also focused on the harsh conditions and treatments of slaves. We even watched a video on a documentary with painful depiction of slaves being whipped and abused. Even about the Civil War in 1860's, many people might be thinking it was the confrontation between the South, who were supporting slavery, and the North, who were against the slavery. My history teacher in sophomore year taught us in the first lesson that this is a wrong interpretation. The North was never against slavery, but did not want it to be expanded into their territories. As I recall, I could learn these accurate historical facts probably because my high school was in the town where a lot of African Americans resided. We also had the Black History Month, so our school might've intended to teach "true" history about black people as much as possible. My high school had probably provided a good environment. However, I was taught that Lincoln was a hero for freeing slaves, but his Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves only in states in rebellion against the United States. It was not a universal declaration. Lincoln did not even have an intention to do that.
These two chapters focused on how racism influenced the content of textbook. Although this might be a hindrance for European authors, but they have to deal with that dilemma for students who have both responsibilities and rights to learn accurately.
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