Drew Lopenzina’s excellent June 16 My Turn essay in support of Abenaki scholar Lisa Brook’s new indigenous centered history of King Phillips’ War, “Our Beloved Kin,” motivated me to remember back and reflect on what I learned early on in my life about American Indians. Our early American history classes taught us how the West was won, but failed to mention how the white man broke his treaties with American Indians, or herded Indian tribes off their historic homelands to less desirable reservations so that the settlers could claim the richer soil.
And then, as kids in the 1950s, we played cowboys and Indians. The cowboys were the good guys and the Indians were the bad guys. The Western movies were immensely popular in the ’50s and ’60s. Again, the heroic white man against the evil Indians.
Looking back, we were brainwashed. The educational and cultural influences of the time promulgated white superiority and therefore racial bias, which is alive and flourishing today. Some of the history books were updated to more accurately represent our real history. That said, schools and school systems have always been vulnerable to politically preferred beliefs and influences that warp what students are taught.
A recent case in point can be found in Michigan where conservative lawmakers have stripped the state’s social studies curriculum of any reference to civil rights, climate change or “core democratic values.” State Sen. Patrick Colbeck said these phrases are “not politically neutral.” Also included in the “removed” references are Roe v. Wade, the NAACP and gay rights. Students are to be taught that “the expansion of rights for some groups can be viewed as an infringement of rights and freedoms of others.”
Ideally, education’s role in a democracy is to train citizens who are active and informed voters with tolerance and respect for diversity critical to that constitutional guarantee. To be informed is to know and understand our real American history.
John Bos
Shelburne Falls