Long talk with my boys this morning about colonization. They were connecting dots: WE were a colony (boo)...who fought for independence (yay)...but not before terrorizing & displacing indigenous people (BOO). Made a list of all the countries & cultures crushed by colonization.
It is so sobering to face our sordid history of abuses. Not one teacher in my life ever suggested anything less than Manifest Destiny as a triumph.
Grateful this morning for my son’s public school history teacher walking her students through the terrors embedded in American history, both here and around the world.
The natural end to a white-washed, polished understanding of American history is, at best, tone deaf patriotism in denial of the suffering it has wreaked and, at worst, nationalism.
May we raise clear-eyed, wide awake children able to confess the sins of their country, recognize lingering inequity in our systems, and fight for justice and the dignity of their neighbors.
I hope they are the best American generation yet. I can’t wait to see what they will accomplish that no generation before them had the humility and grit to do.
May our leadership continue to include more women, people of color, folks across the spectrum of sexuality, the differently abled, religious minorities, and system buckers. They will lead us to the better version of ourselves we are all missing right now.
