Although the author of the June 10 letter (School board’s statement on LGBTQ flag) to the editor may not have intended it, she raised an issue that speaks to the state of America today. Why is this nation still grappling with racism, inequality, and injustice?

Part of the reason is because many Americans are either ignorant of or refuse to acknowledge the nation’s true history. Instead, they believe a mythological history of the United States, a partly true (at best) or false (at worst) tale of a land of freedom, equality, and justice for all. A story about the “land of the free, home of the brave” that whitewashes or altogether ignores the patterns of racism, violence, and injustice that permeate our nation’s past. Although the founders wrote “all men were created equal” and that all are endowed with inalienable rights, those were just words on paper for the majority of Americans for much of our nation’s history. We still struggle to make those words true for all Americans, as recent events indicate.

The author of the letter cites the first Thanksgiving as an example of “true” history. She writes, “Instead of truthfully telling how the Pilgrims gave thanks to God for his care and giving them aid through Squanto, now students are told the Pilgrims came to America to exploit the native peoples.”

This is a prime example of the mythological view of American history. The first Thanksgiving, celebrated in 1621, is only half the story. The relationship between the Pilgrims and the Natives soon fell apart because of the Pilgrims’ harsh treatment of their Native neighbors and their constant demands for Native land. Tired of this poor treatment, the Pequots responded with military action in 1637 (known as the Pequot War).

The Pilgrims inflicted a harsh revenge: they surrounded a Pequot village, locked its inhabitants inside, and set fire to it. Plymouth Colony’s Gov. William Bradford wrote the following about the incident: “It was a fearful sight to see them (the Pequots) thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they [the English] gave the praise to God….”

To teach only about the first Thanksgiving and ignore what came after is irresponsible; it is only half the story. It would be like telling someone about the story of the Titanic, but ending the story with the ship out at sea steaming along at a record-setting pace. If you stopped the story there, it would seem as if all was well and everyone made it to America safely. But we all know that the second half of the story is just as important as the first half: the Titanic sinks. And it’s necessary to tell the entire story in order to understand the significance of this event.

Telling a mythological or half-true story about the Pilgrims is not just a problem in our understanding of Native American history. This is also the case when we learn about African American history. We need to tell the whole story — warts and all — not just the good parts. In addition to talking about freeing the slaves after the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, we also have to talk about the ugly parts in our history. We need to learn about the systematic violence and brutality of slavery. We need to learn about how many black men were lynched in the 19th and 20th centuries. We need to learn about redlining, how black Americans were denied home mortgages, and barred from purchasing homes in certain neighborhoods. We need to learn how they were denied jobs because of the color of their skin, or paid less — even in the military — for their service. We need to learn about the higher incarceration rates and harsher penalties of black Americans in the criminal justice system.

Learning history is so very important to understanding the state of our country today. But we must learn the true history that acknowledges our nation’s failures as well as our nation’s victories, our true past and not the sanitized, mythological past. If we don’t learn the true history, we won’t understand the deep pain and hurt that have been inflicted on entire groups of people. We won’t understand why people are angry and frustrated, because we won’t know or acknowledge the injustice and inequality that have been present from the very beginning.

The first step in healing a broken relationship is to acknowledge that a wrong has been done. Without that, there can be no healing. We must, as a nation, acknowledge the hurt, pain, and injustice that has been suffered by many people in the past. One way we can do this is to discard the mythological version of American history and study our entire past, warts and all. Only then can we begin to heal.

— Dr. Anita Gaul is a History Instructor at Minnesota West Community & Technical College