American History X

Why conservatives are terrified that their snowflake children will get their feelings hurt by learning history

Fact: most Americans were unaware that the only time the United States government dropped a bomb on its own people was in 1919.

Greenwood, a predominantly black district in Tulsa, OK was attacked and lit on fire by an angry white mob. Greenwood was known as “Black Wall Street” due to its wealth and strong business foundation. The residents fought back and the were Dresden bombed by their own government for having the audacity to defend their homes and property. The Tulsa Race Massacre is not taught in U.S. public schools.

Most Americans were unaware that this ever occurred — until the HBO television series The Watchmen showed that shameful massacre (it was not a “riot,” despite how the Tulsa Library describes it) in its opening montage.

Yes, American children do not know that the only people the United States bombed on its own soil were Black Americans.

However, if you listen to red state semi-literates and their opportunistic manipulating pundits (code for Republicans), you would think that teaching historical facts will somehow destroy the American Way because white children will “feel ashamed.”

Ma and Pa Snowflake have some large chips on their shoulders. White America faces becoming a majority minority within the next 20 years. Yes, immigration from Europe is down, mostly because the United States is culturally a third world quasi-theistic dystopia teetering on the edge of fascism. We cannot discount that in order to, according to the racist rubes, make sure that non-whites know their place, Republicans changed worker protection laws and stopped supporting living wages in favor of shipping middle class wealth to China. As a result, uneducated poor whites, who overwhelmingly congregate in the laziest and most unhealthy regions of the United States, are thrown to the bottom of the barrel and stomped on. Unlike immigrants who have historically led the fight for social justice by appealing to America’s founding principles — think Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, poor white men are given disproportionate leeway in courts when they strike out violently, particularly if the victims are poor, non-white, and/or female.

No one celebrates the violent scrappy immigrant, but Cletus is a goddamned hero if he goes on a mass shooting spree.

Before we feel too badly for Jethro the wannabe skinhead, let’s remember that white displacement is not solely the result of immigration policies. White America is currently on a killing spree against itself. Main factors include an aging population, rampant obesity, phallic gun culture, rampant illicit substance abuse, and voting for Republican politicians who scream about immigrants while ripping the safety net of decent pay, affordable medical care, and affordable education away. It is legendary legerdemain and it is avoidable if only Billy Joe Jim Bob would stop fondling his gun long enough to listen.

Moral panic is a tool for the weak and there is no one circling the toilet bowl faster than rural red America. Therefore, someone else must be to blame if their gub’ment check doesn’t arrive on time. While red states are by far the biggest welfare moochers of federal dollars provided by blue states, they absolutely refuse to admit that their gun toting Jesus and hatred of anyone different is driving their children to larger, more diverse and progressive cities.

Red America refuses to reconcile with its own past, and it is too afraid to face the future — because (clutch those pearls!) their children might feel a little sad.

Flyover country is why the United States refuses to learn lessons from events like the Tulsa Race Massacre. It is simply too afraid to learn about it because some fragile white child might feel some discomfort. It is just soooo much easier to not even try to think about the anguish and fear that little black children felt while U.S. Army airplanes dropped bombs on them in 1919.