UN-SANITIZING AMERICAN HISTORY

excerpt from POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME, by Dr Joy DeGruy Leary

"Studying history in American schools we learn about the excesses of the Roman empire, the viciousness of Stalin's Soviet Union ..., the brutality of the Nazis...the barbarity of the Mongols....and the Huns...the Japanese during WWII... the Viet Cong..., Milosevic's Serbia, Hussein's Iraq, the Taliban, and Osama Bin Laden, to  name but a few.

...But missing from this list is one society that is responsible for some of the most gruesome crimes against humanity in history- The United States of America.....With respect to the genocide of Native Americans, and the enslavement and later oppression of those of African descent, the history we in this land learn has been greatly sanitized....How do I make real the pain and suffering of our ancestors?

...Have you ever had a really severe migraine headache?...flu...cancer...car acident... where the pain was so intense and persistent, that all you wanted was medication to knock yourself out?...It's all you think about...

Now imagine being in a constant state of hunger, pain, thirst.  When you get past your physical state you are greeted by feelings of fear, anger, grief and hopelessness.

Imagine giving up your dignity, your identity, your will, your soul to relieve your seemingly endless suffering.  What effects must such compromises have on a human being?  It is no wonder the transatlantic slave trade, slavery, and the times that followed are usually given such short shift in the recounting of our history.  This is hard stuff.  Far too many people say, "Of course the middle passage was bad.  Of course slavery was bad.  Of course Jim Crow and lynching was bad.  Now let's move on."  Rarely are people willing to look at what "bad" really was.

It is important...that you try to feel what they might have gone through.  We need to do this in order to learn and appreciate our history...to get a stronger sense about the forces that have shaped our community...so we can understand the strength our people had in order to survive and at times even thrive in some of the harshest conditions...strength that has been passed down to us."