Tongue Tied...

"There can be no real doubt that the white colonialists who took over sub-Saharan Africa in the 19th century and earlier had a civilizing influence there -- but mentioning that is pretty taboo these days. So how the heck did mention of the fact get into a New York Regents High School examination? We may never know but it did. The questions in the exam concerned asked students to describe how Africa benefited from imperialism. Students were given historical passages to read, then asked to comment:
"On the exam, students were asked to read Lugard's account of British projects in Africa like digging wells and building irrigation systems, then to "state two ways British imperialism would benefit Africans."
Next up was a passage from Lugard's "The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa," from 1922. It described British efforts to end the slave trade and reduce famine and disease."

Source

"Delicate African students were reduced to tears by such talk. It is sort of encouraging that a bit of history sometimes peeps through the propaganda, though."
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I do recall first learning of the origin of my last name. It was an amalgam of Latin words proclaiming "we found this guy living in the hills and his lot are really resistant to bad food," or something to that effect. Sicilians (or, more accurately, those who would become Sicilians) of a certain physiology were transported to Rome as food tasters for Pope Innocent I, and when one of them died, the Vatican at long last decided to give the line a proper name. Go back far enough, and everyone from every part of the globe was at one time the property of someone else.

Rising above the past is what makes a people great. Wallowing in it, is what keeps a people fragile.

History is what it is. Not that crimes against humanity should be forgotten, but there comes a time when a people must begin making their own history and dispense with the victim mentality.