Portrayal of Violence in the U.S. and Beyond

Steven Chi

4/20/14
Section A02

Reading Reflection #5

In Response to “Empire of Death and the Plague of Civic Violence” by Darrell Y. Hamamoto

                This is probably one of the most shocking and sickening scholarly articles that I’ve ever read. It mainly talked about a couple of notorious serial killers, mass murderers, and ex-military snipers, their murders, their reasons for committing those crimes, and how their actions fit into the broader scheme of militarization and the Vietnam War. To most of us, killing is not necessary to prove a point; but those who say otherwise must have experienced a lot of traumatic or psychological scarring.

                Anyhow, the main thing I wish to discuss is how schools overlook violence in the United States and present one-sided facts about history. For instance, when I learned about the Vietnam War in my sophomore year of high school, I only learned the cold, hard facts such as the Tet Offensive, Vietnamization, and various war-related statistics. But my history textbook did not even mention how American soldiers massacred and raped entire villages of Vietnamese citizens.

                To me, this is pretty irksome. Students must have access to unbiased accounts of history because they will need to utilize this knowledge when they occupy our country’s top leadership positions. If students completely disregard what American soldiers did in the Vietnam War, they cannot enact policies to prevent something like this from happening in the future. 

Question: How can history be re-developed so that it is unbiased?