In Salvetti you read that not only Italians but also Chinese and Mexicans were victims of organized, ritualistic lynching.
What else do you begin to suspect that is being kept hidden from us about history? And why is it kept secret? Is it a willful conspiracy? Or is it just the natural collective tendency to suppress unpleasant memories?
REPLY TO THE CLASSMATE WHO WROTE THE COMMENT IMMEDIATELY AFTER YOURS (that means you will have to come back to check.)
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I always felt skeptical about history and what the government/media feeds us. We grow up learning mainly American History from a single history textbook per year. The events we learn remain constant, except each year we learn a few more details. This information is drilled into us so that we always remember that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 with the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria. However, I always assumed that each story ran much deeper. I felt that that textbooks excluded what didn't fit easily. Much like how the events are swept under the rug and wrongly hidden when they happen, the textbooks and scholars did the same in piecing history together for us. I believe this country doesn't know how to admit to their wrongdoings, so they also most definitely suppress unpleasant memories.
ReplyDeleteI believe it was a choice to keep this information from us as a way to ease or suppress the guilt. We already see different things in history being rewritten or taken out. Take black history for one there are places in the south trying to take slavery out of the teaching curriculum as well as the textbook. Nothing is coincidental as far as I'm concerned. I was so surprised when I read the information of how lynching came to be, I also was and still am surprised that it was never taught to us that it orginated from a man named Charles Lynch who would lynch people selling horses to the British army. I think this was purposefully kept to make lynching seem like an isolated punishment for African Americans only. This could have been done as a way to further oppress African Americans. My days trusting the government are far behind me, I think we're just scratching the surface on the list of things hidden from us.
ReplyDeleteI think there are probably lots of things most people don't know about their own countries. People tend to not want to hear about the bad things their ancestors have done, even if they themselves were completely not involved. For this reason, I think there are probably lots of things we don't know about American history and how certain groups were mistreated. However, I don't think it's a conscious decision by the textbook companies to leave these things out. It's probably a subconscious decision, for example, they might say they need to "streamline" history to make it fit into one book, or to organize it to make it easier for students to remember. They might then choose specific things to leave out that they feel are small or insignificant to most people, but that have a lot of significance to the people who were affected.
ReplyDeleteYocheved, I would like to believe that it was not a conscious decision but I feel everything is done for a reason. There is so much we don't even know about our government, and the media only feeds it's public crumbs about what's really happening in our country. I know there is a lot more than what meets the eye. That's why teaching curriculum have to be chosen and reviewed before teaching in public schools. There are things they simply do not want us to know about, which is why we find out a lot more once we enter college. It's not as filtered as the American public school systems.
DeleteI have no doubt in my mind that Son of Italy has only covered a fraction of the actual abuse immigrants were subjected to. The reason you won't hear about it is twofold. First, the nativists or "Whites" would turn a blind eye to the injustice that plagued the lives of immigrants. Why would they intervene in or report the troubles of people they despise? Next, the immigrants that came to America struggled to communicate with the locals. They were often uneducated and couldn't adequate the describe their misfortune. Also they were too busy trying to survive. When you combine these things together, you have a lot of pain and lynching that goes unreported.
ReplyDeleteI live for conspiracy theories!! That being said, I absolutely believe some things in history are purposely kept from us. I don't necessarily believe that it's the bad thins that are kept from us. Sometimes I think it's the great things that happen in certain groups. I'd like to think this is done in an effort to preserve the idea that the "majority" or "dominant" groups are capable of doing great things while only a small amount of people from the minority groups can have success.
ReplyDeleteI do not know exactly what else is being hidden from us in history, but I believe the "secrets" are kept because the victimized groups do not actively seek to better their political conditions. For instance, as the case was with African Americans, we see many activists helping slaves escape to the north, fighting to end slavery, and fighting for equality. Still, we see African American professionals on news shows addressing the issue of employment inequality and wage inequality. Everywhere I go, there are programs organized by wealthier African Americans to aid the advancement of current African American students. However, I never see any such help offered from my own ethnicity to Pakistani-Americans. Even in religion, after 9/11, Muslims were discriminated against. No one wanted to be near them. Still, Trump supporters want to ban Muslims from the United States of America. Until now, we had not taken a stand. We had quietly endured the aftermath of 9/11, even though we had no association with the extremists that are accused of the attacks. The Muslim community themselves is terrorized by the accused, let alone aid them. Finally, however, we are beginning to take a stand. Our newer generation is standing up for all Muslims. Those who have become successful lawyers are helping the detained. We are advising each other on safety and rights under the constitution. The Muslim community had never before been as educated on the US Constitution as we are now. Again, it is the actions of the whole group as a collective that is needed to better the political situation of a certain ethnicity or religion in the US. Without such actions, no matter how hard each individual works, we will stay oppressed. Without these actions, we will not get media coverage and we will not be mentioned in history textbooks. It seems as if a certain part of history doesn't matter if there were no significant activist movements against the oppression.
ReplyDeleteConspiracy theories are always fun to entertain in a sense, because who doesn't want to believe that there is some type of greater issue going on to make the world seem more interesting. I do believe that the extreme of how badly immigrants and African Americans were treated is hidden in a sense, because we react in human empathetic way and if we truly knew the extreme things that happened we would have to find ways to cope with it. I also believe that the education system picks and chooses what they want us to learn and remember more thoroughly and thats what they decide should be taught. Going back to the Italians going through so many hardships and how there was so much racism against them and that they were barred from the United States, why isn't that taught to us in elementary, middle or high school? We learn about so many other “tribes” and how they had to deal with racism and dealing with the poverty and hardships they went through, but its the same thing. I do believe that it is in a sense kept a secret or hidden to an extent so that we could sympathize the tribes that dealt with the slavery and racism in a longer harsher extent, but that does not mean we should completely forget about other nationalities that had to go through these issues as well.
ReplyDeleteNicoletta, what you say about the extent of immigrants and African Americans' maltreatment quickly grabbed my attention. I already believe that their treatment was horrible and I could not imagine worse treatment as you imply. It is a unique concept that history is hidden so we don't have to cope with it, but I do not think that is the reason so much history is unknown to us. I believe it has more to do with how active and noisy the community had become to respond to the injustices they performed.
DeleteI think certain things are suppressed to support diplomatic relations with foreign entities. I also think that there's a lot of corruption going on. Companies are run compartmentalized so it's hard for someone to come in and pinpoint where the source is because compartmentalization inadvertently aids in corruption from the bottom to the top. This country's judiciary system also needs to be revised. We have people at the top of the FDA and USDA that worked or had ties to companies for big agra and big pharma that were at some point, called into legal question. If everything is compromised at its root, what will it sprout?
ReplyDeleteThey say "history is written by the victors", the victors in this case - white southerners. I think they wouldn't want to advertise the blemishes in their past. To add onto Kara's point, as a country we all learn more or less the same history. We study from the same text books, we take the same standardize tests. I don't think the US government wants to bullet point all it's missteps.
ReplyDeleteI think the Italians didn't talk about the lynchings to their children because they didn't want to scare their children. I think a generation later, Italians started assimilating into American culture, the country has moved on to another race or "tribe" to discriminate. Patizia Salvetti says that even educated historians didn't know about the lynching - it was so tucked under the rug.
There is one education system and it must be approved by each state's Department Of Education. If you want to home school your child, they must learn the same education from the same educational materials learned by "regular" students. Otherwise, a person's education is rendered invalid. Yes, there needs to be standards, but education should not be rigid.
DeleteConspiracy theories are a very controversial topic. They are based on exaggerations, rumors, and lies which appeal to certain emotions like fear and anger against certain groups like women, Mexicans, Muslims, the media and the government. I do think things are being hidden from us and I think people think some things aren't as impressive to talk about. They aren't suppressed for bad reasoning but because it is easier for people to move on if they aren't talked about or mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI believe all immigrants were victims of lynching, but it was not discussed if the lynching was not as severe as the Italians. I believe it has a lot to do with blocking unpleasant memories, but also a slight conspiracy. America wants to have this great notion that it is "The land of the free" and the "American dream." If all immigrants were being treated with such harm and discrimination, America is not what it was said to be. If more of the history comes out, then the voyage and time spent in America by many previous generations was far from the American Dream.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read that other tribes such as Chinese and Mexicans were victims of lynching, I was surprised, but at the same time not surprised. Nothing seems to surprise me anymore when it come to the truth about this country being revealed. First we were unaware of Italians being lynched so what makes us think that they were the only other tribe to fall victim to the cruel act? I wouldn't even dare to start a conversation about conspiracies because that will open up a whole other can of worms, but I will say suppressing unpleasant memories is what happens. I don't think it's a tendency either, I think it's those who run the government who chose not to have true history be told. We are supposed to be America "Land of The Free" or "Home of The Great", but yet we have cruel inhumane acts of torture that has occurred on this land. We do not want to be viewed as anything other than the best so we act and only tell stories that make us look like we are the best. Maybe I am going to deep with this, but I hate being in college and JUST NOW finding out the TRUTH of our American history.
ReplyDeleteI said this in another response. What do I think is being kept from us about history, the fact that this country is made of ugliness. A people who seek superiority so great that they must cast fear, and dehumanize, and murder in order to keep that superiority. This country has taken on that behavior in the form of laws and jails systems, they have organized their horrific behavior and made us to believe it is for our own good for the safety of the country. I do believe it is willful conspiracy on the part of those who inflict it and it could even be said that we are taught to go willingly with said conspiracy as well. Trump got elected people fought and protested for one month then everyone went back to conformity (what else we going to do, said so many). I think we are thus lead to believe that it is of "natural collective tendency to suppress unpleasant memories", I think we want to forget so we rationalize to just not think of it but I don't think its natural to ignore a problem rather then to solve it. Whats even more unnatural is the human beings comfort with taking the easy way out. We were built for resilence whether we use it or not.
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