Activity 4

Taking that quiz was an extremely eye opening experience for me. I found as I continued on from question to question that I knew less and less. I could not believe how few people I could think of for each question and the ones I did think of were complete guesses. I feel that there is definitely a change that needs to be made on what I store up in my brain; if I cannot name one asian male or latino, or which ever the sex or race then, frankly that is pretty sad.:( I am not going to hold it against myself but I am going to make a change and start widening my daily learning.

The ethnic group that was easiest for me to think of names for, was white males. This is also sad to me that I was unable to think of much other names for males of different races. I believe it is so easy to think of people for white males because that is what we have been taught so much about all throughout high school, who discovered the united states, who was the first president, who invented the light bulb; all of these white males, and all linked with superiority.

Males were the easiest for me to come up with answers for because like I said before we have learned so much about all the powerful male figures in history, Martin Luther King, George Washington, Christopher Columbus, these were all easy ones for me to think of for white and black males. It was difficult to think of answers for all the female ones I thought of a few for white and I could not think of any for black except the ones that we all know about from pop culture. And I could not think of anything for latino, asian, middle eastern.

History talks about the powerful beings of the United States, the ones who made huge impacts on our country. Presidents, Leaders, policy makers, sports champions, heroes and anyone that has led some sort of impact or change in history.

You don't hear a whole lot about the groups of people in history that struggled but made it and were still powerful people some people made themselves known. It is sad to say this but it seems like there is not much said about the variety of different races. I do not remember ever learning about a famous latino american that did something great or asian , or middle eastern. I mostly remember learning about the power and superiority of white males and the struggles of the black males.

I have know clue why we haven't been taught about all these other races where there had to be come people that made an impact or had something great to say that we all could learn from. Maybe it is the way the government wants us to see the United States, maybe they want the U.S. to be about powerful whites and politics. I do not have the answers to the questions of the mysteries of the U.S. government.

question: Do you think that U.S. government has complete control over the history we learn about in high school and possibly doesn't include materials that wont promote the image that they want us to see the U.S. as?