So long as our textbooks hide from us the roles that people of color have played in exploration, from at least 6000 BC to the twentieth century, they encourage us to look to Europe and its extensions as the seat of all knowledge and intelligence. So long as they say โdiscover,โ they imply that whites are the only people who really matter. So long as they simply celebrate Columbus, rather than teach both sides of his exploit, they encourage us to identify with white Western exploitation rather than study it.
James W. LoewenNative Americans are not and must not be props in a sort of theme park of the past, where we go to have a good time and see exotic cultures. โWhat we have done to the peoples who were living in North Americaโ is, according to anthropologist Sol Tax, โour Original Sin.
James W. LoewenWe still have to realize that if you are say a historian of the Civil War, you donโt know anything special about say Columbus or for that matter the 20th century. You are a consumer of that information, especially if itโs stuff like Columbus and the American Indians. That information isnโt even in history, much of it. Much of it is in anthropology or archeology.
James W. LoewenColumbus not only sent the first slaves acroiss the Atlantic, he sent more slaves than any other individual
James W. Loewen