To say I was disturbed while reading Zinn’s chapter, “Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress” is an understatement. \u00a0It was revolting to read of the horrible killings and malicious burning of indigenous communities’ crops and villages, amongst other things. \u00a0I was distressed reading these accounts, even though I had read many of them before. \u00a0When Zinn stated these horrible beginning of history between the Europeans’ invasions of indigenous people’s land, it made me reflect on what history I have been taught. \u00a0In fifth grade, we did projects on European explorers – mine on Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s; this contributed to the systemic indoctrination of romanticizing these wealth-driven Europeans. \u00a0In middle school, you learn of the Trail of Tears and reservations; it wasn’t until I took an English class on Native American Literature in college that I got a glimpse into the generational affects of Europeans’ actions centuries ago. \u00a0Early exploration of the Americas is romanticized by schools and media and holidays (why do we even celebrate Columbus Day?); in reality, it made the lives of indigenous people – and minorities alike – troubled through each generation.<\/p>\n
Hayter’s work contextualizes this in the fight for voting rights of African Americans in Virginia and the greater southern states. \u00a0Richmond was cultivated in an ideology of segregation and power inequality. \u00a0Moving into the Civil Rights period, African Americans had been oppressed for so long; their fight to secure voting rights was the avenue to gaining a voice. \u00a0Wealthy whites continued to disregard African Americans through voting laws and annexation; this was essentially the Europeans burning crops and villages to eliminate opposition. \u00a0And even though Richmond had few victories, like electing an African American mayor and a majority African American city council, they have been restricted within the city and the federal system to structurally alter the wealth and education available in the city. \u00a0As Hayter concludes with, “it is imperative that we remember America\u2019s long history of cloaking disenfranchisement in the garb of ‘good government.'”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To say I was disturbed while reading Zinn’s chapter, “Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress” is an understatement. \u00a0It was revolting to read of the horrible killings and malicious burning of indigenous communities’ crops and villages, amongst other things. \u00a0I was distressed reading these accounts, even though I had read many of them before. \u00a0When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4692,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-responses"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4692"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}