Do you think these historical events, rules, and laws still impact our society today?

I think they made a great point in the second to last video that recognizing these traumas of People of Color and finding the shortcomings of societal values is difficult for people and society as a whole to swallow so instead, nothing is confronted. It is difficult to own that the white people ultimately have been ostracizing and penalizing people for their skin color and built society standards around that. I agree with you, completely. I believe more of past events need to be portrayed accurately and honestly in history books to teach our children to do differently.

I think many of the things these videos covered are perpetuated today just in a different manner. I saw the correlation between the treatment of Japanese Americans detention after the bombing of Pearl Harbor likened to the hate crimes committed towards people of middle eastern decent and/or identification as Muslim after 9/11. Some people often take their fear out on people who have nothing to do with the actions of a few people with ill intent.

While pieces of these videos might make it into history courses, a great majority do not. I agree with Sedenia, my first thought after watching the video on Japanese internment was related to the treatment of those of middle eastern decent after 9/11; the impact of this still felt very much today.

I also think it is important to recognize that while these videos share a glimpse into the American history of systemic racism, there is so much more to learn about the invaluable contributions and diverse histories of those who who are not or have not been considered white in America.

I believe the videos show the historical perspective of how we got to where we are today. My social work education looked through the lens of critical race theory and I still was surprised at how insidious racism permeates throughout our society. It was painful to watch and I had a hard time watching those videos. I had a superficial knowledge of much of the information. In my cohort of which there were only three males, one Latino, two whites (one who self-identified as gay and was Jewish) complained about the class dealing with white privilege and to that end the two white males were given the opportunity to leave the class and complete work in another way.

I absolutely believe that the history of white supremacy has led us to where we are today - with communities still hurting and severely impacted. And choosing to not widely teach this in our schools has led many (in my discussions) to believe it doesn't exist or was made up. With almost nothing being addressed, admitted to, or apologized for, how can we step forward?

Just like in a pond a rock makes ripples way farther out then just its point of contact. Some of these events and dates that they are tied to have ripples that can definitely effect people today. Examples poured out from doctors understandings and beliefs, legislation that is lingering or barely left the books, and more that have an effect on marginalized groups.

I have always known about the great injustices that native americans faced, but I was CLUELESS on all the other races and what the "white people" allowed! I have also discussed with my kids about historical events that were purposely omitted from their K-12 education. This just sickens me to know what white people did, what was legalized, and the secrecy of it all! I am infuriated! I believe this abuse definitely plays a role in today's society.

While difficult to watch, the videos underscored for me how present are the biases and institutionalized oppressive forces operating today. As others have already mentioned, this history is not taught to us in elementary or high school, a very telling sign to me (in the absence of curriculum material) of how pervasive is the white privilege and supremacy. In this 21st century we have witnessed an economic plunge (2008) that specifically hit homeowners of colour, who were targeted for "bad mortgages" by the historical crew of privileged white power and money on Wall St. We continue to see the effects of racial discrimination today witnessed by the disproportionate incarceration of Native Americans, People of Color, Latin Americans.

It's amazing the horrific things that white people have done Because They Can. We want the land, so we're going to deliberately and systemically tear apart Native American families and social structure, BECAUSE WE CAN. Finding an environmentally safer way to process and manufacture products seems expensive and like a hassle, so we'll just pollute Black neighborhoods, BECAUSE WE CAN. It's like a case study answering the question: what will people do if there's no accountability? What a horrifying answer.

It makes me wonder how many times I've done things I would be ashamed to have publicized, knowing I could quietly get away with it. How many times have I been complicit in injustice just because I could?

I learned about  the injustice of "Indian schools" in High school near the Canadian Border. Growing up in Michigan, today was the first I learned about the Bath riots. It was eye opening to hear the same language of "dirty " and "diseased" being used today as the  excuse for border enforcement. Michigan's history of racism has always been deep and absolutely structural. Until 9/11 Canadians crossed the border to live and work at will and no one ever saw their white skin as a threat. The thread that runs through each example is benefit to those with white skin to the detriment of those with darker skin. Whiteness is a hell of a drug

I completely agree. There is so much history that I wasn’t exposed to, and even the pieces I did learn about such as Japanese internment were very glossed over. The video included in the module may have been longer than my entire formal education on the subject. Given that so many people don’t know the true history behind these events, it’s no wonder that these events are still impacting our society. The other piece that caught my attention was in the video about boarding schools where it said that some counties have formally apologized for their action, but not the US. We have a lot of work to do.

I completely agree. There is so much history that I wasn’t exposed to, and even the pieces I did learn about such as the Japanese internment were very glossed over. The video included in the module may have been longer than my entire formal education on the subject. Given that so many people don’t know the true history behind these events, it’s no wonder that these events are still impacting our society. The other piece that caught my attention was in the video about boarding schools and adoptions where it said that New Zealand and Canada have formally apologized for these actions, but the US hasn’t. We have a lot of work to do.

Although outside of the USA I do believe these laws and restrictions still heavily impact society today. I recently watched the documentary 13th on Netflix (in the UK) and was shocked at things such as the "law on crime" and "law on drugs" in US history actually being more about Colour than those things. I recently heard TD Jakes in an interview with Carl Lentz and he talked about July 4th being American Independence day but actually at that time his ancestors were still enslaved ans so celebrating "American Independence" wasn't independence for black people. I was entirely unaware of "Enlightenment" and European involvement although I feel racism is more covert in the UK than possibly in the USA we have still been entirely entirely complicit historically regardless of the different dynamics that are in play now.

I have no doubt that historical events, rules, and laws affect our society/culture today. As I watched the videos, I felt depressed. I had to stop to give myself time to recover from my negative feeling. What disturbs me more than what happened in the past is the denial of the current effects of what happened and of white privilege. So often, I hear people say, “I never owned slaves; therefore, I do not have to do anything about past event.” However, historical events, rules, and laws still affect Black Americans, and we must take to action to ensure equal opportunity to all Americans. As much as I hated watching the videos, I knew I had to watch them to stay aware of the discrimination that exists today.

There is definitely still a great impact on our society today and by Society I mean world wide. I am Canadian and know only too well that despite the stereotype of our welcoming and friendly nature, we have a long and sordid history of blatant racism. The thing is, I know there is still racism and discrimination in the world, however I've been blind as to just how veiled and pervasive it is, like a weed with deep strong roots that you don't see on the surface but pops up everywhere in the landscape showing it's ugly head. It's been there so long it has become part of the landscape.. and this is not acceptable.

Absolutely the topics in the videos continue today. There have been numerous environmental rollbacks affecting water, air and land. Systemic racism will continue to thrive unless legislative actions are taken and even then if the legislation is not enforced there will be no or very little change.

Absolutely, the impact of these past policies, in all of their deliberateness, can be felt today. I agree with others who are bewildered and disappointed in our history texts, books we are given encouragement to trust that have marginalized reference to any of these topics to a paragraph or sidebar (such as the Japanese Internment camps or the horrific experiments on the Tuskeegee Airmen).

My wife works in textbook creation (elementary math) and even in that subject they have been asked to make changes to their curriculum to pander to the guidelines from particularly conservative states, sometimes altering language around a particular issue or topic in ways that seem to look backward instead of forward - and having served on a textbook adoption committee for high school language arts in my own state several years ago, I can see how the political motivations come through in what is / is not included in the texts at all. This hearkens back to lobbies and political drive for controlling the ways of thought developed in the young, from scientific concepts (also with the potential, as we see in the videos in Eugenics segments), to minimization of anything less than the dominant narrative of (white) American exceptionalism.

As many have noted, we have some serious work to do.

I don't know how that it is a question. Of course they impact today! I only knew 2/9 videos and as someone above remarked, those videos were far more information than I knew about those two subjects. The fact that so many of the other videos were completely new information to me at 32 years old is unacceptable. And while I will post and share, I'll be accused for being righteous, political, too liberal, etc. What's worse, it's not just past tense as many of us believe it to be. Latinx people are in concentration camps right now being sprayed by disinfectants known for burning and incredible pain, even likened to the gases used in the holocaust, and yet it continues. 1) Because we don't know about it and 2) we have to bother our congress people with it in addition to all of the other things they are trying to deal with, of course not excluding police brutality. These videos weren't only hard to watch, but left me feeling very powerless. I would donate 1k to an org if it made a difference in the lives of the people at the border, but the saddest hardest truth is because of the complexity of the system there isn't. It's just more reason to be anti-racist over non-racist.

I think all of the historical context presented in this module has created the normative values and beliefs that have a grip on the nation. Every step of the nation's history has been fraught with laws and beliefs that have created the systemic racism and personal biases that exist today. From the beginning people attempted to use science to "prove" the inferiority of POC in so many ways. Our so-called "justice system" is founded on the use of African Americans as slaves, from the beginning of taking them from Africa, to the imprisoning them to use as laborers as the law allowed. To this day we have POC treated differently in housing, education, employment, and yes, the judicial system. With the foundation being built in such a thorough, complex manner around racist beliefs the undoing of these institutions and reeducation of them is a daunting task. The mere fact that history has been so manipulated and white-washed is disheartening; I cannot imagine the level of hurt created by this lack of inclusion in the telling of our history for children and other grade levels.

Karen, I connected to your thoughts and reflections after viewing these videos. I also believe these historical events our society today and will continue to do so if we do not face this honestly and openly, and taking responsibility to make necessary steps to not repeat them. I also, despite my education experience in the therapy field for over twenty years, realized how much more I needed to learn about the atrocities involving people of color. My hope is that our educational system will include a review of this material so we can learn from the past and not repeat it.