Whitewashing History

maybe only half of us. Who the fuck knows at this point that we weren't going to give credit or celebrate a racist, rapist, misogynist explorer who believe that they could discover a place where people were already living and had already been living for generations. And so Columbus Day would be renamed Indigenous People's Day. But what I realized as we take time off for this holiday, is that we tallet Indigenous People's Day, but we don't actually talk

about Indigenous people. We don't talk about their suffering, we don't talk about their brilliance, we don't talk about their ingenuity. We don't actually teach about the indigenous people of this country. You know, I can remember a time many many years ago, many many moons ago, being in elementary school, and you know, on this day or as we were getting ready to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. And mind you, I saw this recently,

and I was appalled. We would cut out little pilgrim hats, you know, from the black construction paper, and cut out feathers and moccasins, and the teachers in the classroom would have cornucopia and there would be these lovely stories right about the Pilgrims and at that time Indians, which now we refer to as Native Americans, because you see, when

you know better, you were supposed to actually do better. Right, just because something has always been one way doesn't mean that once you've received more information that you can't make a pivot. And a couple of years ago, I think I might have been home visiting my family on Long Island and I saw kids getting off of the school bus and I was shocked and appalled because they had the same fucking cutouts that I had had decades earlier, that they were still carrying home from school, the same out.

So the pilgrim hats and the moccasins and all of this, and we're going to learn about you know, Columbus, and we're going to learn about you know, Thanksgiving, And I'm like, why is it so god damn hard to just tell the truth once you learn it, because I'm not saying that from the beginning of time we should have you

know that we understood who these people were. And what America loves to do is that they love to and this is present right with actors and directors who we want to still love their art but then condemn the people that have been sexual predators or what have you. Like, we still want to celebrate and listen to certain music and watch certain movies and not make the connection between the actions of said explorer or said actor and what we have benefited from their experience. And I don't understand

why we make it so difficult to do both. And you can acknowledge right that without Columbus, without Columbus having drunkenly sailed around and didn't actually discover America, because again, you can't discover something that is already inhabited. You can't discover a place that is already inhabited. And it wasn't even America that he fucking landed on. That we wouldn't have been able to connect continents in a certain way.

We wouldn't understand things about geography, things about our Earth, and the planet and the water and all of these things. And so you can acknowledge that by virtue of his exploration that we learned a lot more about the planet

and its people. You can recognize that, and then also understand that he was a rapist, murderer, savage, right like he wanted to call the people that welcomed and with open arms, these community minded indigenous people welcoming these strangers, thinking that they are just as loving and open and community minded and earth minded as they are. Unbeknownst to them, they literally invited the vampires into their house. Right. You can tell both of those stories, because both of them

are fucking true. But what America does is whitewash and eliminate anything anything that is negative about their precious white explorers, or their precious white presidents, or their precious white you know, inventors, and leave everything else out so that all we're left to believe, which is what is the foundation of white supremacist ideology, is that white people are the end all be all of all things, right, that they are the builders.

Without white people, Oh my god, where would the planet be. I would argue, maybe probably in better shape than with the white people that have been in charge of it. Thus far, I would argue that we would have a better understanding of who we are as a people, and I mean all people. The contributions of all people to define this nation would have made us stronger because we would then be working from this collective, communal understanding of how each and every community in this nation is integral

to the success of this nation. But we didn't do that.

White cis hetero men in charge of all things decided that they were the ones to be carved in marble, that their accomplishments and theirs alone were the ones to lift up and celebrate, so much so that we created entire histories and curriculums and good, good bedtime stories about the founding of this nation and these great men and the Founding Fathers and all of these things without contextualizing what was actually happening with the rest of the fucking

people that inhabited this country. You can talk right about the genius and the creativity of the founding fathers in their creation of the constitution and this idea of a democracy, and also talk about the fact that they alone would

dictate who was considered human and who wasn't. That while they were screaming and dumping tea in the ocean about their own oppression, that they shackled human beings, raped and tortured them, broke apart families and destroyed tried to, I will say, try to destroy the soul of black people, enslaved African people, indigenous people, but they did not succeed there. Hey there, I want to tell you about another podcast

I think you'll love. The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics, hosted by a Shanty Gohler, the president of Emerge BGG, is the one stop shop for women of color who want to hear and talk about the world of politics. Join a Shanty this season as she talks to incredible women of color who are changing the face of politics and tackling some of the most important issues facing the United States, from reproductive justice to voting rights, to climate change and more. Tune in every Tuesday wherever you get

your podcasts. Hey, I'm David Plots of Slates Political Gabfest. As another election season accelerates, it can be tricky to sort through all the noise and the news. Each week, on the Gapfest, John Dickerson, Emily Bathlona and I decipher the headlines, break down the races and tell you what issues really matter. We do not always agree, We definitely do not always agree, but we always deliver thoughtful debate, and we always have a good time. So subscribe to

Slate's Political Gapfest, new episodes every Thursday. We are suffering right now from generation's worth of lies. We are suffering right now because of the lies about a stolen election, of the lies that a former twice in peach, disgrace, treason as former president told about Mexicans being rapist caravans coming to invade your suburban community. We need to put

them in cages in order to keep you safe. Lied about there being good people on both sides of when we are one side is hailing Nazi salutes and the other side is fighting for justice. Those lies wouldn't have been able to take hold if we had actually taken the time and done the work to educate the masses of the truth of this nation. Contrary to what Ronda Santis out of Florida believes, that doesn't create white guilt. What it creates is a system of accountability and responsibility.

What it does is allow us to understand the signs clearly of what it looks like when fascism and authoritarianism begin to take hold, because you will have learned about it, maybe we wouldn't be in a situation where we need to continue to chant that black lives matter, because you would have learned how black lives have shaped this country, bringing you everything from stoplights to jazz, to the cotton gym, to equity injustice, to so many accomplishments, to the mathematic

equation that allowed for man to land on the moon. The question that I always asked and wish that I could really ask if I could sit down with one of these white supremacists politicians who are so hell bent on pushing back against any form of anti racist teachings, any form of critical race theory, which, by the way, you know, is not taught in schools in K through twelve schools. What has been worked on since I've been in elementary school is the inclusion of everyone else's narrative

and contributions that make this country what it is. So what I would ask is, what are you afraid of? Why are you so terrified of the entire truth of this nation? Wouldn't it make people even more patriotic to see that when we know better, when we learn and then know better that we seek to do better with each and every generation. Why is it And I did

not say this, but somebody else had said it. Why is it that the RHN de santiss and the Mark Marco Rubios and the Ted cruises, Why do they believe that? Why people would only identify with the worst in this nation and make them feel bad. Why is it so hard to think that they could identify with leaders and innovators and entertainers that don't look like them, but could also be inspired by their stories. That's the question that

I would ask. I don't want to debate these motherfuckers because they don't debate with facts, and they're stupid, frankly, and I'll say that I don't give a fuck they are. You hear some of the ship that comes out of their mouth, You're like, damn, our education system really is broken. And some of you motherfucker's paid to go to school, to go to private school, and you're still stupid. But the fact is that I think that we debate the wrong things because I'm not here to debate the merits

of my humanity. No, I'm here to ask you what you are afraid of? Because you are clearly, clearly terrified of people understanding the truth, of people seeing the value outside of being chadow, the value of black lives, Indigenous lives, Latin X lives, Asian Pacific Islanders, Asian lives. What is so terrifying about the brilliance the genius of other people that are not white sis hetero men? I would ask,

why are you so fragile? Why did you need to create such tall tales about who you are and what you've accomplished, Because there are some that have accomplished great things, but we can tell the whole truth about the person. It's the same way that you watch these leaders die and then people say, well, don't speak ill of the dead. Well, if you did not do good in life, remind me

why I should respect you in death. Now. I don't mean to degrade anybody or spit on anybody's grade, but I'm sure it's fuck not going to talk about them as this wondrous philanthropist when they're a colonizer and a thief. We watch this play out with the death of the queen. The death of the queen should have been the death of the entirety of the idea of monarchy. Monarchies only exist because of raping and pilla chain other nations taking them over bit by bit, stealing their jewels and literally

putting them in your crown. So why is it that people were pooh pooed for telling the entire truth about what it is Queen Elizabeth was presiding over and what her entire family generations benefited from. Now is not the time? Tell me when the fucking time is. I never understand when the right time is to do anything here. It's not the right time, and the aftermath of it yet another catastrophic once in a century storm. To talk about

climate change, it's never the right time. After a major mass shooting takes away nineteen children's lives, never the right time to talk about gun control. When another unarmed black person is murdered by police, is never the right time to talk about police reform. When we are looking at a city or multiple cities in these United States that don't have clean drinking water for taxpaying citizens, it's never

the right time to talk about systemic racism. And when we have a federal holiday whose name has been changed but the history hasn't really been taught, it's never the right time. So my feeling, folks, is that we need to make time. We need to use right these federal holidays that again, not everybody gets to take off, but I'd like to say most people get to take off, but I don't know the statistics. But we should use

this time that we're not having to toil away to rest. Yes, but while we're resting, let's use the time to educate ourselves. Let's learn a little bit and then let's share what we have learned. Let's do a deep dive into who Columbus was, what he did, where he actually went, and share that with people. Because when we know better, when we learn, we should want to teach, We should want to share. We should want to uplift, not hide the bad and hide behind the good or what you presume

to be the good. We need to tell the whole story because generations from now, Lord only knows what type of government even if this kind, who knows? I have no idea what people will be living under forty years from now. I know it won't be a democracy. Who knows what education will look like. But I do know that we have an opportunity right now to be able to share information, real information, do our real research with

credible outlets and tell the truth. That was supposed to be the beauty behind social media was to connect us more, and all it's really done is divide us. But we should take these opportunities when we have these collective holidays to understand stand these holidays, because otherwise we just continue to believe the lies that have been fed to us our entire lives. And then turn around and wonder how

we got to the place that we're in. How we have a quarter of the population that still is not vaccinated because they believed that this was all a hoax. Million plus people dead in this country, their neighbors, their friends, and they still believe that this is all a hoax. Tell the truth. Let's all tell the truth so that we don't continue to repeat history over and over and over again. That is it for me today, dear friends on wokate f as always power to the people and

to all the people. Power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck.