re: #187 HappyWarrior

Yep. All about US containing communism. Not about the sovereignty and rights of the Vietnamese people. It would be foolish to think that racism didn’t impact our policies in Vietnam.

Asian/PI racism gets downplayed in our history because it doesn’t have one central vein, like slavery, but it’s ubiquitous once you start looking around. I mean, how often does anyone discuss the history of Hawaii as colonization? How about how we got into the Philippines? These are basic “X happened in year Y” aspects of US history, yet they’re given minimal recognition.

(As is the history of what happened to all the Hispanics that were forced to migrate from Texas and the West)

Vietnam stings especially because the direct parallel to US history—fighting to be free of a colonial power—to an almost poetic degree. Ho Chi Minh trying to appeal to Wilson using Wilson’s own rhetoric only to be rebuffed. It’s like something from an Icelandic saga.

This is why I assert that there’s a real danger to creating a happy “narrative” of history. You are defined by what you conceal because there are always the pressures of will it remained buried and what else will have to be buried to maintain the illusion . Man, now I sound like Edgar Allen Poe trying to write political commentary.