Most Americans are oblivious to the fact that the US helped "liberate" the Philippines from Spain in 1898 and then decided to keep it as a colony in one of the most racist & bloody conquests in US history. Just read the incredibly genocidal captions (see alt-text) in this popular book from the era. - ThreadSky

sanho.bsky.social • 94 days ago

Most Americans are oblivious to the fact that the US helped "liberate" the Philippines from Spain in 1898 and then decided to keep it as a colony in one of the most racist & bloody conquests in US history. Just read the incredibly genocidal captions (see alt-text) in this popular book from the era.

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bigboysplash.bsky.social•89 days ago

Thank you for this. You educated me today.

arizonaheat.bsky.social•93 days ago

I am sad to say I did not know this.
Well, while Republicans are erasing and whitewashing all nonwhite history, this will be swept away with many, like me, never even having known it.

pancitparty91.bsky.social•17 days ago

Same. I got the sanitized version of events in highschool, and my parents never talked about it.

arizonaheat.bsky.social•17 days ago

I did not even know about the Trail of Tears until I was an adult.

sanho.bsky.social•93 days ago

The book talk by Stephen Kinzer is a good corrective.

dapper-doug.bsky.social•89 days ago

Mark Twain wrote about this in "To the Person Sitting in Darkness"

dapper-doug.bsky.social•89 days ago

Here is the essay.
https://web.viu.ca/davies/H321GildedAge/Twain.ToThePersonSittingInDarkness.1901.htm

boocow16.bsky.social•94 days ago

No they kept this out of the History books.

sanho.bsky.social•94 days ago

Yeah. It cuts too deeply into the four minutes allotted for the Spanish-American War.

boocow16.bsky.social•94 days ago

Yes I can see why. This is something I would have loved to have learned about in High School.

sanho.bsky.social•94 days ago

If you’re not familiar with the bloody US conquest and colonization of the Philippines, watch Stephen Kinzer’s book talk on C-SPAN. Most people in the US have no idea this country was once a proper empire.

tonymonsanto.bsky.social•94 days ago

📌

sanho.bsky.social•93 days ago

Outraged that John Sayles’ film “Amigo” isn’t available in the US b/c I was going to recommend it as a pop culture intro to the brutal US colonization of the Philippines. Perhaps others can watch it abroad or via VPN. You can also watch “1898: Our Last Men in the Philippines.”
Other suggestions?

sanho.bsky.social•39 days ago

Anybody remember the last time the US was formally an empire?

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