Реферат: The Opressed Essay Research Paper The Oppressed

the most heinous crimes a historian can commit, Zinn says, because

?Outright lying or quiet omission takes the risk of discovery which,

when made, might arouse the reader to rebel against the writer. To state

the facts, however, and then bury them in a mass of other information is

to say to the reader: yes, mass murder took place, but it?s not that

important… it should effect very little what we do in the world? (8).

Zinn says that ?selection, simplification, [and] emphasis? (8) are

necessary to the historian, but he chooses to take a different stance in

his writings.

?…I prefer to tell the story of the discovery of America from the

viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the

slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees, of the Civil War as

seen by the New York Irish… of the First World War as seen by

socialists, the Second World War as seen by pacifists, the New Deal as

seen by the blacks in Harlem, the postwar American empire as seen by

peons in Latin America. And so on, to the limited extent that any one

person, however he or she strains, can ?see? history from the standpoint

of others? (10).

Zinn continues his identification with the oppressed as he discusses

black-white relations. He says that blacks and whites are not naturally

prejudiced against each other as some would have us believe; he points

to the fact that laws actually had to be passed to keep blacks and

whites from fraternizing. Servants and slaves of different races saw

each other as oppressed workers first and as members of a specific race

second. On the topic of slavery, Zinn berates the American system,

calling it ?lifelong, morally crippling, destructive of family ties,

without hope of any future? (27). Some argue that African tribes had

slavery of their own so it was a part of their culture to begin with,

but Zinn says that ?the ?slaves? of Africa were more like the serfs of