fandomhigh | American History: Lies Your Other Teachers Told You [Friday, October 31, 2014, 2nd period]

Josh was dressed up as John F. Kennedy today because of course he was.

"Ask not what candy can do for you," he said in a thick Boston accent (and he was from Connecticut, so he could do a pretty credible Boston accent). "Ask what you can do for candy."

That didn't make sense, but Josh wasn't the speechwriter for a reason.

"Anyway," he said in his normal voice, "we've missed out on a discussion of Native Americans because things kept coming up. You spent a class in the Museum of the American Indian, a place ~~with unlabeled exhibits~~ devoted to fixing the history books' attempt to keep the stories of Natives confined to a neat box labeled 'Pocahontas', 'Squanto,' 'Sacajawea,' or 'terrible John Wayne film.' There are hundreds of tribes with thousands of members living in every state in the Union and they have real problems right now that don't have anything to do with teaching white people how to grow corn or fighting back against the very real land-grab they were subjected to over the course of several centuries."

He leaned back against his desk. "So based on what you learned in previous classes, tell me the first word that comes to mind when you think of Native Americans, and we'll see if we can't do a little bit of deprogramming today."

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"Oh, right, you're not from around here," Josh said. "What struck you the most at the museum? Other than the food, because that's pretty good stuff."

"It was hard to tell the current things from the history," Jalian said, frowning. Without context or labels... "They seem to live a lot like ken Selvren, I think. But most people here don't. That's because they have a different ethnic stock than those currently in charge?" That certainly seemed the case, even if it was really odd.

"I don't know much--" anything, "--about ken Selvren, but they are a different ethnic stock, yeah. Well, sort of. There's been a lot of blending over the centuries. There aren't a ton of full-blooded tribal members left," Josh said.

Ken Selvren were a matriarchal tribe where intellectual arguments that didn't affect day-to-day life were at best tolerated, and males were largely ignored, Josh; you'd hate it.

"But if there's so much blending, then why the discrepancies?" Jalian asked, confused.

"Racism, mostly," Josh replied bluntly. "It's another reason we don't like to teach it to our children--it doesn't exactly paint us in the best light."

American History: Lies Your Other Teachers Told You [Friday, October 31, 2014, 2nd period]

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