
Tulsa Race Riot - vinnyglennon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot
======
pwinnski
Someone watched the new Watchmen show!

The Tulsa Race Riot is the nastiest incident in America's nasty history of
racism, and it's not as long ago as one might hope.

Personally, I hope America one day fully comes to terms with her history,
rather than continually sweeping things under the rug, leaving people
uneducated about history innocently asking why others, educated about history,
can't just "get over it."

~~~
taurath
Growing up I never heard of it. It’s crazy how well it’s been swept under the
rug.

~~~
pwinnski
Some years back, I decided to dig into stuff completely counter to what I'd
learned growing up. And sure enough, most of it seemed really crazy, not
reality-based at all. At first. But I kept reading, and sometimes I'd look up
other--more mainstream--books to see if such-and-such was even true. Over the
long haul, it really dramatically changed how I view... everything.

It took a long time and a lot of reading, so I'm not surprised when I see
people respond with disbelief and dismissal to things I (now) know are
definitely true. After all, schools are generally operated by and supportive
of some central authority or another (government, church, etc), so it's not
really in their interests to teach us to question authority.

Plus, reality is exhausting and sad.

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okcwarrior
I was educated in Oklahoma in the 80s/90s and this was NOT taught in school at
all. I didn't find out about this until I actually moved to Tulsa.

~~~
mojomark
I grew up in MD and didnçt hear about the coal mine wars (1) until last year,
which However, it could have been fairly important and impactful history for
the region. However, I could have very well just not been paying attention.

1.)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_coal_wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_coal_wars)

~~~
dmix
There's a finite amount of history you can teach young kids in a short time
span. You've got to prioritize.

There's a million interesting stories in history.

~~~
olliej
From my wife the American education system _only_ covers the parts where they
did “good”, that’s not prioritization that’s deliberately selective rewriting
of history.

Covering the war of independence and the civil war in huge detail but skipping
the less palatable parts of its own history results in an huge portion of the
country not understanding what the effected groups are complaining about.

Think: if you aren’t aware of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments or the
difference in quality of treatment at black vs white hospitals you think black
people are just being stupid for not trusting the medical establishment.

If you don’t know about things like the Tulsa bombing you think black people
are being hysterical when they say the government wants to exterminate them.

How many Americans know that the Japanese internment camps resulted in many
japanese Americans losing all of their assets: many (most?) didn’t get their
homes back when they were released from imprisonment.

The purpose of history is to teach history, and selective coverage results in
people having a functionally delusional view of other people’s experience.

To the extent that if you bring these things up people think you’re attacking
America, when in reality you’re just trying to get people to avoid repeating
past mistakes.

~~~
rainhacker
> From my wife the American education system only covers the parts where they
> did “good”, that’s not prioritization that’s deliberately selective
> rewriting of history

This is pretty common among other countries. A big one is Britain's Colonial
history. It isn't part of school curriculum in Britain.

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aklemm
The Wilmington Insurrection is comparable and similarly unknown. Totally
shameful, both that they happened and further that we aren't taught.

The Wilmington Insurrection is comparable and similarly unknown. Totally
shameful, bothxrhat they happened and further that we aren't aware.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898)

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omarhaneef
I read about it a few years ago and was as surprised as all of you are.

In case people are wondering why it is all over the press, the HBO series
Watchmen (apparently, only tangentially related to the comic/movie of the same
name) just launched this past Sunday and it opens with a dramatization of this
event.

Reading about it doesn't really capture what it is like to see the
dramatization.

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yogue
I moved to Tulsa a few years ago, and hadn’t known about the race riots until
recently! The funny thing is that I only learned about it after strolling in
Guthrie Green garden and digging about it! It’s amazing how close I lived to
the “Black Wall Street“ and didn’t have a clue about its days of glory and
gloomed until I opened up the Wikipedia article!

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umvi
Behold the self-destructive power of fake news and misinformation.

I imagine something similar could happen today where a fake news tweet/story
ignites violence between two political/religious/ethnic groups that are on
edge with each other.

~~~
not2b
Yes, these kinds of things were key parts of the Rwanda genocide (radio
broadcasts urging Hutus to kill Tutsis in "self defense") and the Myanmar
ethnic cleansing of the Rohinga people (driven in part by Facebook postings
and admitted by Facebook, see
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-
facebo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-
facebook.html)

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dver
History Guy on the "Red Summer" of 1919
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy3a6PvIcxI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy3a6PvIcxI)

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RickJWagner
1921\. Good riddance to those kinds of problems. Mobs of people shooting at
each other, based on skin color! 10,000 residents left without homes.
Unimaginable.

100 years later, thank God things moved in a better direction. Still progress
to be made, but we're definitely in a better place than this.

