In Germany, a mandatory part of the school curriculum is dedicated to educating children on the Holocaust. Students learn, and acknowledge that they come from that past of genocide. It is not watered down; people do not shy away from the topic because "that was the past".
In the United States, the history of slavery is taught to a minimum. What kids do learn, of how Abraham Lincoln was anti-slavery and how it "was not that bad" is so often false we grow to have a warped view on the whole period in time.
In Canada, most kids, even adults are blissfully unaware of our past; of Japanese concentration camps and the horrid atrocities that went on in residential schools. Growing up in a town where 25% were Aboriginal, I was never taught once of the horrors that was Canada's past. To me, that oppression was over. I could see alcoholism, abuse, and spiking suicide rates in front of my own eyes yet to me, that racism and it's effects did not exist, because I was never taught that it did.
Fact is that North America is lagging behind on educating the …show more content…
And no, you did not do those things. But, what we need to do as a society to truly move forward is own up to the fact that you are part of a society that did, one that is built upon the backs of oppression. One of the saddest things is how we want to dismiss. All that we wish to remember is that which makes us seem like the victim, while we erase that which shows us as the oppressor. To preach "Never Forget" events like 9/11, yet claim that we just need to get over slavery, to move on is hypocrisy at its most …show more content…
When black children have to grow up being taught in school on how to act around police to save their own life, you can't simply move
In the United States, the history of slavery is taught to a minimum. What kids do learn, of how Abraham Lincoln was anti-slavery and how it "was not that bad" is so often false we grow to have a warped view on the whole period in time.
In Canada, most kids, even adults are blissfully unaware of our past; of Japanese concentration camps and the horrid atrocities that went on in residential schools. Growing up in a town where 25% were Aboriginal, I was never taught once of the horrors that was Canada's past. To me, that oppression was over. I could see alcoholism, abuse, and spiking suicide rates in front of my own eyes yet to me, that racism and it's effects did not exist, because I was never taught that it did.
Fact is that North America is lagging behind on educating the …show more content…
And no, you did not do those things. But, what we need to do as a society to truly move forward is own up to the fact that you are part of a society that did, one that is built upon the backs of oppression. One of the saddest things is how we want to dismiss. All that we wish to remember is that which makes us seem like the victim, while we erase that which shows us as the oppressor. To preach "Never Forget" events like 9/11, yet claim that we just need to get over slavery, to move on is hypocrisy at its most …show more content…
When black children have to grow up being taught in school on how to act around police to save their own life, you can't simply move