I don’t really feel like this is anti American. No country on earth has clean hands through history- even its modern history. But... it isn’t history. Natives still suffer, natives still have land taken from them because it suits “progress.” Treaties are still nothing more than appeasement honored on convenience- and the same institutionalized poverty that has been aimed at other minority groups was aimed at natives to keep us all “in our place.”
So less an issue of being anti American- I think it’s pro American to remind people who forget, that when they look at history books and say “wow. These ancestors were so wrong to do this...” that it isn’t over. These things are still going on, and if we do not accept that and commit to do better- history will remember us in the same sentence. The “forefathers who stole native lands and over centuries contributed to the effective extinction of native tribes and culture.” And the great, great whatever grandkids will shake their heads and say: “what a shame. These people wee barbarians...”
And we can say that about anything- especially on Memorial Day- that now is the time to remember and honor our fallen- and commit to doing better. To making sure they have the training and the equipment and the care is taken by their commands so that we don’t just keep shaking our heads at the past and repeating the same mistreatment’s. The branches do a fine job- but it’s not good enough. Let’s give credit where it is due- but still be able to say: “we need you to do better.” Wether it is native peoples or soldiers who rely on the government and must trust in it for their well being- for all the good we need to ask for better for our brothers and sisters and loved ones and fellow country folk.
Pointing out problematic aspects of a country's past is anti-American? Soooo free speech is anti-American? Damn. "The first amendment is anti-American" is a hell of a hot take.
It’s a game we can’t win. We can speculate a wide range of revisionist histories and alternate presents- everything from “the world would be completely destroyed/hell on earth if this never happened” to “we would have complete paradise on earth” and a wide array of more likely and less extreme scenarios in between.
It’s easier, but still open to WIDE interpretation if we look at just a single thing- if we say “we wouldn’t have the lightbulb because Edison....” well.... maybe? 1. Who’s to say that Edison or someone else wouldn’t have invented it wherever else they were? Or that someone else wouldn’t have invented it? Often times many people invent the same thing around the same time, one usually gets famous. But would things change so much if it was a competitor who became the “named inventor”? And would those changes be bad? Even if we say it would take decades or centuries more to invent something- is that bad? Would the world be “better” if some of the progress of the 20th century wasn’t slowed to give people a chance to “catch up” in our own advancement?
Ultimately- a “different” world is just- different. For the most part we are conditioned to prefer the known to the unknown. We see this with generation gaps. As time passes and the world changes, older folks tend to want to keep things familiar to the world they grew up in. Resentment builds between old and young generations as the young change the things the old are used to. When old folks talk about the “good old days” they weren’t that good. But they were familiar. They feel safe looking backwards because the past is known and that world makes sense to them. Young folks who never experienced that world or aren’t accustomed to it want to improve the things hey see as wrong with it. The same applies here. If the future went differently- it would be different. We hear different and if we like what we have- we see different as “bad” since we like things as they are.
But of course- people who have reason to not like things as they are, those people are more likely to want change. The worse things are for a person, the less they have to lose when there is change.
I say this only because things would have most likely turned out different if the Native Americans were treated better.