(no subject)
More history needs to be taught in schools. Broader than Europe and the US. I mean, I went to a nice private school (those of you familiar with the Texas public education system can understand why my mom made that choice), and all the non-white culture history I got was a unit on Egypt, a unit on Mesopotamia, and a unit on China. That's a total of roughly two months out of four years discussing a handful of cultures not of European origin (and at least part of Egypt's nativity is debatable).
Anyway, I was doing some preliminary research for my game, poking around Wikipedia for articles about various locations I'll be incorporating into it. The particular place relevant to this discussion is Great Zimbabwe, a collection of stone structures scattered across about 200 square miles in modern Zimbabwe. Now, for structures like this to have been built, I knew that some relatively advanced degree of civilization must have been achieved there. But you think about indigenous African peoples, you think tribes like the Masai, right?
I felt simultaneously amazed and shamefully ignorant when I read that shards of Chinese pottery were found in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. Chinese. I had no idea that such a trading empire existed in sub-Saharan Africa, or even a notion that it could have.
I know a lot of schools have already adopted Black History Month -- being a government program, I'm sure most public schools are required to -- but even those don't go beyond civil rights leaders and those who have otherwise contributed to American history. I know it's a lot to fit into the shortest month of the year, but if they could even just touch on African culture, rather than just African-American, I think it would make a world of difference.
Anyway, I was doing some preliminary research for my game, poking around Wikipedia for articles about various locations I'll be incorporating into it. The particular place relevant to this discussion is Great Zimbabwe, a collection of stone structures scattered across about 200 square miles in modern Zimbabwe. Now, for structures like this to have been built, I knew that some relatively advanced degree of civilization must have been achieved there. But you think about indigenous African peoples, you think tribes like the Masai, right?
I felt simultaneously amazed and shamefully ignorant when I read that shards of Chinese pottery were found in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. Chinese. I had no idea that such a trading empire existed in sub-Saharan Africa, or even a notion that it could have.
I know a lot of schools have already adopted Black History Month -- being a government program, I'm sure most public schools are required to -- but even those don't go beyond civil rights leaders and those who have otherwise contributed to American history. I know it's a lot to fit into the shortest month of the year, but if they could even just touch on African culture, rather than just African-American, I think it would make a world of difference.