Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by townsend (A) on February 01, 2007 at 19:09:45

In Reply to: Re: The Tracker posted by Doug Flynn on February 1, 2007 at 00:02:07:

Doug,

Thanks for your insight.

I can't speak for other Americans, but I am ashamed at how white European settlers treated native Americans during westward expansion.

Along with shooting them like vermin ("the only good Indian is a dead one"), the U.S. army distributed blankets infected with small pox among the Indians. And of course, the Indians had no natural immunity to small pox. It was truly a European disease.

I saw a similar attitude manifested by the lead white policeman in The Tracker toward the aborigines. It saddened me and reminded me of the similar situation during westward expansion.

There is often talk about how we need to learn from history and not to repeat the errors of the past. But the cruel treatment of aboriginal peoples all over the world, largely by technologically savvy white Europeans settling the Americas, Africa, and Australia, is an ugly and shameful chapter of human history.