We Have Been Mislead…
I agree to much of what Zinn was talking about in his piece about history and the deception that we face whenever we study this history. Zinn’s understanding of historical context really hits the spot. What is historical context? Simply put, it is the context of a specific moment in which an event takes place. So for example, if we were to look at the period of WWII, depending on what side you were on, you would see the war differently (and in some cases leave things out completely). This unfairly sheds light on the more “prominent” information, and leaves out the information that could be deemed “forgettable”(an example that Zinn uses is the numerous massacres that go forgotten). How is this misinformation (of sorts) being distributed to new minds? We can only look to the effects of education, and its tendency to leave out information that is not as important as other events. Zinn stated, “… it didn’t take much thought to realize that as soon as you do history you are confronted with the fact that you are selecting out of an infinite amount of data a certain amount of data.” (71) Zinn’s example involving massacres is a perfect example. During the civil war, we hear mostly about the war, but we never hear about the Native Americans pushed off their land in order for the Union to expand. There are no “objective” historians. “…it became clear to me that there was no such thing as objectivity, that there’s an enormous amount of hypocrisy in the history profession and elsewhere about objectivity.” (71) We are taught histories from many different people whether it be teachers or television programs. Chances are, that these professors are teaching a side of history that is seen by the greater public. We do not hear about the countless lives of labor workers in Colorado being taken. We don’t hear about the massacres of African Americans in the south. What we hear, is a sensitized “history” that is based off of those who have probably wronged a great portion of people, and as a cover-up taught the history that concealed the wrongdoings.
Zinn talks about social movements in his piece. These social movements tend to bring about change, whether it be political or not. I personally chose to look at the Animal Rights Movement. As many people have heard(and it is pretty self-explanatory) this movement is focused on bringing more rights to animals to counteract animal suffering. This has contributed greatly to democracy, since many different political acts were brought up as a result of more support for anti-animal abuse. We see different acts such as bans on different types of animal testing, but we also see acts that prevent the use of undercover videos in facilities.
Funny enough, students at Canal Alliance have just talked about Donald Trump a few weeks ago. One student was working on a presentation for their history class specifically looking at history, whether it be recent or further in the past. As a satirical piece, they chose to use Donald Trump as their subject and talked about what made him qualified to be president. It actually proved to be a very difficult task because most of the information was very opinionated, and there were very few facts to back up his reasons. Other students have also pitched their own opinions and said that they are concerned about Donald Trump becoming president. None of the students admitted to their parents being illegal immigrants, but there is a chance that their peers could be threatened by Trump’s proposals. Talking to the students at Canal, I have discovered that they are very caught up with what is going on, meaning that they are aware and paying attention.
