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."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

WTF are you wearing Josh.

One of the top five comments from college students is still "savage", so don't feel badly if that's yours too...

Ask him wtf with the JFK.

Happy Halloween!

Flick

"Thanksgiving," Flick said since it was the first thing to pop into his head.

Paddra Nsu-Yeul

"Different," Yeul said, when it was her turn.

Kathy

Kathy was also in costume today, so she saw nothing wrong with Josh's. If anything, she was just grateful that he was dressed up as pre-Dallas JFK.

She was, however, frowning. All of the words that came to her mind weren't about Native peoples, exactly. Instead, they were words about what the original settlers and later the government had done to them. And that wasn't very good.

"Screwed," she admitted reluctantly.

Cosette Fauchelevent

Raven Darkholme

Raven was in her natural blue form, today (with a dress, thankyouverymuch). Ah, Halloween, when you actually wanted people to shriek at the very sight of you.

"Noble?" she said. Which was at least a sight better than what she'd have gone with just based on her pre-Fandom education.

Jalian d'Arsennette y ken Selvren

"Nothing," Jalian said with a sigh. Honestly, the only thing she knew about Native Americans was that they weren't the same as Real Indians back home.

Gwen Stacy

"When there wasn't even a football game," Josh said, clucking his tongue sadly.

"In a good way or a bad one?" Josh asked.

Josh's mouth quirked up. "You're not wrong," he said. "Do you think restructuring how we talk about Native Americans in school would help at all?"

"How so?" Josh asked.

"Nothing?" Josh repeated.

"It could be either way, depending on who was asked," Yeul said. "I do not have an opinion on that, just that their cultures and values appear to be different from what is regarded as... preferred."

Josh nodded. "There are certain words that get used to paint a picture without saying something overtly. Politicians still use them. People call it 'dog whistling'--something that people listening for it will understand without everyone catching on. It's pretty tacky."

"Well, we only really learn about them in relation to white people," Kathy said. "Maybe we could try to study them for themselves?"

Josh nodded. "It's a complicated history, but I think students can handle complicated."

"Any time we learn about a people only by comparing their history to someone else, we're not really learning about them, but more about how they're seen by the dominant culture."

"True," Josh agreed. "How would you integrate all of the various tribes? As they encountered Europeans?"

"What information do we have about them from before they encountered Europeans? Anything?"

Kathy hadn't studied Native history much, so she didn't really know.

"More now," Josh admitted. "For a few hundred years, no one but the tribe members themselves was all that interested in what they were doing."

"I only know what that museum place said," Jalian answered with a shrug. "I haven't learned any more."

"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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