America the Beautiful

It is said that people who don't know their history have no future.  

Throughout history, there has been warfare, genocide, racism, hate, and other horrible atrocities.  I have never done such a thing.  I was never a Nazi, exterminating Jews; or someone forcing the Native Americans into boarding schools, to have the barbarism beaten out of them.  I have never owned a slave, or killed anyone for religion's sake.  However, there are remaining affects of such things.  What is my history?   But more importantly, what is my future?  America has a colorful history, most of the atrocities somehow don't make it into history books, or are horrible slanted.  No, we did not kill Jewish people in WWII, but we held Japanese people in concentration-esque camps, even those who were American citizens, during this same time.  But I didn't learn that in my seventh grade history class when we read the Diary of Anne Frank.  I didn't know until last year that hundreds of Native Americans were not only removed from their lands and forced onto small, useless lands called reservations; but they were also forced to go to militant like boarding schools.  Four and five year olds were separated from their parents, sometimes until teenagers.  I can never imagine being owned, and living on a plantation as someone's property. 

My first thought on such things is disbelief, not just because it's America, but because these are "modern times" that these things are happening.  How, and why were such things allowed?  My second thought is anger.  I watched a photo-documentary on the present Lakota Indian Reservation, and the statistics blew my mind.  The average male life expectancy is mid-forties.  This is the same as males in Afghanistan presently - during an active war.  But the reservation is here in America, and there is no war going on.  How does this happen?

Basically, this is a rant.  I am learning things that only make me question.  Ignorance is bliss, right?  Well, I'm not blissful anymore.  This is my history of America.  I know my past, and I will have a future.  Hopefully, in my future are aspects such as peace and healing.  In order to be the most helpful in present times of economic stress, failure, and struggles, it is best to know the past failings.  Though it is said you can learn from your mistakes, I see the same mistakes being made throughout history.  But this doesn't need to always be the case.

Once I heard someone say, "you can't fix the world, but you can change it."  This sentence, I hold on to tightly.  There are too many broken things in the world, but at least some can  change, and I intend to do so.