How do we keep each other down?

                                                      How do we keep each other down? 

          We keep each other down by making others feel different and sometimes even inferior. We'll make them feel different for the religion that they practice, their ethnic background, their wealth, their sexual preference, their country's history, etc.  This constant oppression can lead to voluntary assimilation. The Native Americans however, had it different. The United States was trying to integrate Native Americans into the American culture from the years of 1790 to 1920 -- 130 years! They called it civilizing -- a "synonym" for cultural genocide in their heads. The government went as far as to prohibiting their religious ceremonies -- the US Violated it's first amendment to have it's way. However, we had the common decency of giving them an obligatory education in institutions, where they weren't allowed to speak their native tongue. As biased as this sounds, I never saw it from this perspective in my history class.            A country's history often impact an entire group. For example, I may say the word "Nazi" and you more than likely will think "Hitler", "Holocaust", "concentration camps", "Germany". I may say "9/11" and you will think "twin towers", "terrorist", "Osama bin Laden", "Muslim". We put a burden on an entire group when it's a handful that are to carry the blame. Ask yourself "why? Why is it that my brain processes this way? The media? The government? My school? My history class?"           Furthermore, we learn about history so that we don't repeat the same mistakes. History however, in my view, has not been linear, it has been cyclical. History has been repeating over time. The US paints itself as the "peace keeper", "the good guy". If there's one thing I've learned in history class, it's that you can't obtain peace through violence - I'm not a hippie by the way. War will only temporally offer peace. I learned about all the things the US has done in order to keep us "safe", in order to keep "peace". The US will throw a peace sign with one hand and a hand grenade with the other -- and right now I'm doing the same thing I was talking about. Putting a burden on entire group, that group being the "US". We ("the common US citizen") don't create laws or policy, we didn't press the button to launch the nuke in Hiroshima nor did we draft people to Vietnam, etc.