Growing up we are all taught of the great pioneers and explorers of America’s history, and their greatest accomplishments that shaped our nation. But teachers aren’t or weren’t actually providing the full truths of our history, and the people who’ve forged this country to what it now is. The tales of the pilgrims, Columbus, George Washington and even our beloved Pocahontas are simply not all truthful and just simply not properly told. Why is it taught to us wrongly when we are young to only be stripped down to its truth when we get older? Wouldn’t it be simpler and the most logical thing to just tell their stories right the first time? Maybe it has to do with not trying to taint such important figures and holidays in American culture. I mean who would like to stand up everyday and recite the Pledge of Allegiance speaking of liberty and justice for all, knowing that our forefathers took part in our most horrific history of slavery. Maybe the underlying reasons for these things are shame.

When teaching young children who are so new and pure to knowledge do we really want to face them with the ugly truths that children like themselves were being taken from their families and sold across the oceans to work the rest of their lives knowing that they’ll never have a future, or that children their age were being raped by people intruding on their homelands. Doesn’t seem right, so might as well paint a pretty picture in their minds let them cut out little pilgrim hats and pretend that the Indians and pilgrims were best friends.

The other side to history is darker, the true side to history is a mix of cultural misunderstandings and ignorance of morality. The encounters that indigenous people shared with their European intruders not only were cultural misunderstanding in addition to the European idea that European values were ordained and were the right beliefs. Is there still this belief of a “white man’s burden”, but instead of feeling the burden of being more civilized and feeling the responsibility to teach people, it’s now the actual burden of those past implications that were thought to be “helping” people. And the shame in those actions that are leading people to misinform people on true events. In the wake of ignorance media nowadays is playing their part in reinforcing the actual events and actions that our ancestors went through.

With the media’s help in telling stories like that of 12 Years A Slave, or even The Revenant, it gives Americans a better sense of what this country was truly founded on. Wouldn’t you want to know the truth of your history to ensure that we don’t repeat the past unknowingly? Why of course, and fortunately with social media films and other forms of media it is easier than ever to correct these inaccurate tellings of our history.