The history of white washing history

[trenton]

I finished Leo's episode on going meta, and I am applying this history.  The reason I am curious about this is because of the culture wars concerning systemic racism and the modern consequences.  This made me wonder, how do we know our history is true?  What if there were many culture wars in the past, but the truth lost?  The history We get taught would be white washed because it was written by people who successfully covered up their evils.

This thread can cover examples all throughout human history.  This will be a fascinating and educational topic.  These are the kinds of topics that need to be taught in school because we are not getting the truth from our history books.

Here are some examples.

 1. "The relationship between a slave and his master was like that of a father and son.". This was in a college level American history textbook.

2. I would like to call out projection from the right wing in the ongoing culture wars.  They argue that liberals are destroying our history and not telling the truth.  This is done with a denial of systemic racism, a white washing of slavery, and a denial of the consequences of our history.  The right wing is not telling truth about our history, and they often praise those who upheld slavery.

3. In ancient Egypt king Tut's funeral was rushed.  This is unusual for a pharaoh and there are theories that he was assassinated.  My ancient history teacher told me that he was hit in the back of a head with a blunt object and died of a concussion.

4. 

The boy in the right attempted to erase his brother on the left from history.

5. Another modern white wash is Martin Luther king jr.  Our history only teaches us about the civil rights movement of the 60's.  King had many more plans besides that and he would be opposed by modern Americans if he were alive today.  This includes his poor people march, calling over priced medication an injustice, and his criticisms of capitalism which many modern liberals use.  This includes his argument that capitalism is linked militarism and racism.  This is threatening to American society because of our exploitation around the globe.

6.  The brutality toward native Americans is often understated.  The United States was founded on a philosophy of security through expansion like an empire according to Noam Chomsky.  The Indians were given poor reservations where they are still kept to this day.  This was supposed to be a gesture like we are nice to them, but we have them the worst land we did not want.  How should we treat Indians in these reserves?

7.  The violence of the workers rights movements during the industrial revolution are glossed over entirely.  People were protesting against their inhumane conditions and some of them were executed without a trial.  The Herrin massacre of 1922 is one example of violence to prevent worker's rights in America.

To this day there are unions being busted and suppressed.  Amazon's opposition to unionizing is a milder form of the violence that used to present in union suppression.  Use this link to learn more about violence during the industrial revolution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_violence#:~:text=A 

8. White washing was attempted in Nazi Germany immediately after WWII and the holocaust.  Germans tried to deny that there was a genocide and to this day there are still holocaust deniers.  This is one of the most dangerous forms of white washing because it makes a genocide more likely to happen again.  For example, Germany could blame WWII on the jews and start the genocide all over again.  Neo Nazis and antisemitism is on the rise in America and Germany again.

What examples of white washing history can you come up with?  Do you think there are times that the truth lost a culture war?  What are the implications and consequences of these failures?  Consider this a lesson in meta history.

[trenton]

White washing in religion has been so prevalent that it affects modern Christianity.

1. Jesus probably was not white.  This is something that Europe and America assumed.  To this day there are stained glass windows depicting Jesus as white.  This is condescending to non-white Christians who were pushed into rejecting their cultures and to assimilating into white American and European cultures.

2. In the Roman catacombs religious art was white washed into looking like men were religious leaders.  In the Roman catacombs women were depicted preaching, but the people at the time drew beards on the faces of women to make it look like they were religious leaders.  This is evidence that Christianity was not always intended to be a patriarchy and women had a far greater role.  

3.  There is also ancient art suggesting that Christianity and Judaism were not always monotheistic.  There are statues of female deities that suggest that Yahweh has a wife.  This is a massive contradiction to the modern orthodoxy.

"But the potential widespread worship of Asherah would suggest that these religions were not always patriarchal."

https://allthatsinteresting.com/asherah

4. A common defense mechanism in religion is to point out the corruptions and violence of other religions while ignoring the barbaric practices of your own religion.  This leads to glossing over brutal parts of holy texts in order to make it sound superior to other religions.  Muslims become critical of their faith when the brutality in the Quran is ignored. 

"The Quran contains at least 109 verses that speak of war with nonbelievers, usually on the basis of their status as non-Muslims."

Quran 3:56 "As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help."

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com

Meanwhile, Christians use the modern conflict in the middle East to suggest that Islam is an evil religion and the bible needs to be taught in their schools.  Historically, Christianity has been brutal to non-believers in Africa.  A butcher used to cut off people's hands and genitals.

There are likely many more examples I missed.

[trenton]

The most important part of white washing history to discuss is successful genocides.  A complete genocide not only kills everybody within a certain ethnic group, but also destroys the art, language, and any historical reference to this group of people.  If there were any complete genocides, they were already white washed from history and we may never know about them.

Some of the possible victims of complete genocides were pagan and native American tribes.  Some tribes are made up of about 100 people.  They have their own unique language and could easily be conquered for control over resources.  Some possible causes of successful genocides were imperialism and religious crusades.  Roman Christians were brutal to pagans and some small tribes with their own gods may have been wiped out entirely along with their art.

A common phase after genocide is denial.  The following site has a list of active genocides.  These will likely be denied later.

https://www.businessinsider.com/genocides-still-going-on-today-bosnia-2017-11#the-nuer-and-other-ethnic-groups-in-south-sudan-2

No discussion of the history of white washing history would be complete without discussing genocides.