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Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of our racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.
—
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
If you don’t believe America hasn’t been a terrorist state from the beginning, you’d better do some research. And stop watching TV.
(via theghostofronaldreagan)
I skimmed my US History textbook from college this weekend and found that only the first chapter - a whole 20 pages - was dedicated to indigenous Americans. The chapter was even entitled “Americans prior to 1492,” as if the history of this land didn’t begin until white people arrived. It finally motivated me to order Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States.
(via smaddox)
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