1. Christopher Columbus Began A Genocide

Although Columbus never set foot in what we now consider America, we attribute his “discovery” to leading to what we now know as America and have dedicated a holiday to him because the Knights of Columbus wanted another Catholic holiday. When he landed he had a total disregard for the natives. He viewed them as less than human, sold them into slavery and allowed the rape and murder of thousands; those as young as nine were sold into sex slavery. Many were put to work in gold mines until they died of exhaustion or could no longer produce enough at which time their hands would be cut off and hung around their necks as they bled to death.

2. We Continued To Dismantle Native American Culture Until The 70s

Ever heard of what happened at Wounded Knee? Or the Trail or Tears? How about how blankets infected with the smallpox virus were handed out to entire tribes? The American government plainly tried to commit genocide and would move a tribe to a reserve with pretty barren land that would then be split among the tribesmen until some valuable resources were found and they’d be moved again, or the land would be bought extremely cheaply from the natives. There was also a point in the 1950s and 60s when the government simply terminated entire tribes so they wouldn’t have to be responsible for them anymore and could then make them pay property taxes for their reservations. It wasn’t until recently that the tribes have been able to gather enough power to start fighting back and that the government has started respecting them.

3. We Enslaved An Entire People

People of color started out like any other indentured servant and weren’t considered special in any way until the South needed cheap labor and the slave trade started. Then we justified treating an entire people like property through demeaning and dehumanizing propaganda, which has forever changed racial dynamics in America.

4. We Sent An Entire Boatload Of Jewish Refugees Back To Europe During WWII

This is something that you rarely hear about. In 1939, the St. Louis was a German transatlantic liner containing mostly German passengers who were Jews trying to escape the alienation and pogroms they experienced in Germany caused by the Third Reich. They had all applied for U.S. visas and planned to land in Cuba until they had been approved. Due to political infighting and xenophobia in both in Cuba and America only 28 made it into Cuba, while the other 908 were forced to remain on the ship, but denied access to America when they reached Miami. They were forced to go back to Europe, where other countries took them in, but over a quarter of them were killed in the Holocaust as Germany invaded parts of Western Europe. Remind you of another refugee crisis going on today?

5. Japanese Internment Camps

After the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941 during WWII, the American government became extremely paranoid of spies from Japan and questioned the loyalties of Japanese Americans. So, Roosevelt ordered the deportation and the creation of areas designated to hold anyone of Japanese ancestry indefinitely despite many generations of most of the families having lived in and been citizens of America. By the end of 1946, when the camps were closed, between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese descent were imprisoned in these camps. When they were released, they were left with very little of what they had; houses, properties and entire businesses were lost to this forced relocation with the force of overly zealous racism comperable to that which followed the attacks of 9/11.