One of the questions asked in that study was, How...

One of the questions asked in that study was, How many Vietnamese casualties would you estimate that there were during the Vietnam war? The average response on the part of Americans today is about 100,000. The official figure is about two million. The actual figure is probably three to four million. The people who conducted the study raised an appropriate question: What would we think about German political culture if, when you asked people today how many Jews died in the Holocaust, they estimated about 300,000? What would that tell us about German political culture?

—

Noam Chomsky, “Media Control” (via siegfriedandfreud)

Three or four million Asians killed by the US — and three Southeast Asian countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) shattered for several generations — is nothing to US Americans, not even worth a footnote. In World War II, 20 million Chinese were killed, many in concentration camps every bit as brutal as those in Germany, subject to human experimentation for developing chemical and biological weapons, yet I guarantee you that most US Americans have no idea this happened in a war in which the US and China were ostensibly fighting as allies and indeed the Chinese land war was every bit as critical to securing Japan’s surrender as the US naval campaign. Any German who believes that only 300,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust is rightly condemned as a history-denying racist, and for me the same logic applies to US Americans.

(via zuky)

for me and I think probably many others, the problem here is that I was never taught about the Vietnam war. I know almost nothing about it, other than that it happened. I couldn’t tell you what years it was going on, let alone estimate casualties with any degree of accuracy.

which is a problem but I think a problem that should be framed slightly differently than the above?

(via fralusans-ana-marein)

I agree what you’re talking about is a different problem from the original quote. I apologize in advance if I’m mistaken, but I’m assuming that you are an American/currently living in the United States/grew up in US society (I think it’d be a slightly different issue you’re addressing if you were not from the US).

The holes in today’s American education system are enormous concerning history (among other subjects, actually). Lack of knowledge, I’ve found, is one of the most detrimental things that can happen to society, especially if stereotypes and assumptions sprung up from a history that people do not seem to know (ex. the “Saigon whore” or “red Charlie”).

Being seen as Vietnamese-American in a community that did not acknowledge my family history — but living in a society whose government has such a strong impact upon it — is one of the strongest impetus toward my political awareness. I think a lot of minorities who become politicized share similar experiences — the realization that the dominant culture does not acknowledge the painful histories that culture had inflicted upon them.

POSTED 9 months ago ♥ 2,255 notes