Know Your History

We all know the cliche that "we must know our history or we're doomed to repeat it". Well, In the 1950s, the US government must not have had their history down pat. They ordered that Native Americans be moved off of their reservations and into America's big cities. Wait a minute. How was it that they were stuck on these reservations in the first place? The US government ordered them to be contained to the confines of these small reservations. Why is it that the US, or whoever else has the audacity to assume power over another group of people will always force their culture upon that group of people? I think that it is just human nature to feel a sense of ETHNOCENTRICITY. We must break out of this rut, because it has never worked successfully before, and if we do not know the history, we are doomed to repeat it.

White washing

As Americans, we're lucky to have the luxury of free speech. In other countries, dark, and sometimes embarrassing, events in history are softened even deleted. But I wonder how long will it last? Is there already some whitewashing going on in the US? In class, Mr. Bolos brought up that when he visited colonial Williamsburg, there were almost no African-American actors or employees. However, Williamsburg historically, had a high African-American population. What happened there?

Iraq War

How did pres. Bush get away with starting the war in Iraq? He wanted to send a clear message to terrorists that America would strike back. He said that "violence is all they understand". That's right. That's also why the war is such a failure. Violence is the one thing they're good at. He invaded Iraq to "make America safer". Unfortunately, he has done the exact opposite. He has actually provoked them to attack us more. Not to mention that Iraq is a completely innocent country; or was. Ironically, when we invaded Iraq, there was no link to Al Quaeda. Now Al Quaeda's all over Iraq. What do we do now?

Developing Other Cultures

When we say that a group of people are underdeveloped or "developing" culturally what do we mean by this? Usually those terms are associated or have the "connotation" that those other people are inferior to us, and that they need help being brought up to speed. For example, Native Americans who live on the reservation live a much simpler life than people like us from the more densely residential areas such as Chicago. In class this week, someone brought up the fact that they're underdeveloped, and that it is our responsibility to help them. Do they really need help though? Maybe it's a little ETHNOCENTRIC to be thinking like that. They're reservation culture isn't necessarily worse than ours, maybe it's just different.