4 ms·

We can read about Kent State shootings. But what can't we read about? What ugly stuff happened in the US that we don't talk about?

roywiggins 9y ago
We don't have systematic censorship like China does, by any means, but we do choose not to teach and write down certain things, and so they end up nearly forgotten. The Tulsa race riot was excised from official histories, never talked about, and so it faded into a little-known episode of history, until activists brought it to wider attention at the end of the 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot > the city settled into an uneasy peace, and decades of virtual silence about the events were held. It was not recognized in the Tulsa Tribune feature of "Fifteen Years Ago Today" or "Twenty-five Years Ago Today"... The first academic account was a master's thesis written in 1946 by Loren L. Gill, a veteran of World War II. But it did not then receive circulation beyond the University of Tulsa... [In 1996] the chamber of commerce decided to commemorate the riot, but when they read the account and saw photos gathered by Ed Wheeler... they refused to publish it. He took it to both major newspapers, which refused to handle it. His article was finally published in Impact Magazine, a new publication aimed at a black audience, but most of white Tulsa never knew about it."
- I-M-S 9y ago
  "With the number of survivors declining, in 1996, the 75th anniversary of the riot, a bi-partisan group in the state legislature authorized formation of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (...) The park [to the 800 dead riot victims] was dedicated in 2010." No worries then, in 48 years China will acknowledge what happened at Tiananmen, and in 2078 Beijing will get a lovely new park.

4 ms·

We can read about Kent State shootings. But what can't we read about? What ugly stuff happened in the US that we don't talk about?

by clamprecht 9y ago

roywiggins 9y ago
We don't have systematic censorship like China does, by any means, but we do choose not to teach and write down certain things, and so they end up nearly forgotten. The Tulsa race riot was excised from official histories, never talked about, and so it faded into a little-known episode of history, until activists brought it to wider attention at the end of the 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot > the city settled into an uneasy peace, and decades of virtual silence about the events were held. It was not recognized in the Tulsa Tribune feature of "Fifteen Years Ago Today" or "Twenty-five Years Ago Today"... The first academic account was a master's thesis written in 1946 by Loren L. Gill, a veteran of World War II. But it did not then receive circulation beyond the University of Tulsa... [In 1996] the chamber of commerce decided to commemorate the riot, but when they read the account and saw photos gathered by Ed Wheeler... they refused to publish it. He took it to both major newspapers, which refused to handle it. His article was finally published in Impact Magazine, a new publication aimed at a black audience, but most of white Tulsa never knew about it."
- I-M-S 9y ago
  "With the number of survivors declining, in 1996, the 75th anniversary of the riot, a bi-partisan group in the state legislature authorized formation of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (...) The park [to the 800 dead riot victims] was dedicated in 2010." No worries then, in 48 years China will acknowledge what happened at Tiananmen, and in 2078 Beijing will get a lovely new park.