After reading the first section of "Lies My Teacher Told Me," I was surprised by a great deal of the information that was presented. My eyes were especially opened to the truth behind the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. I never knew the full extent of Wilson's racism. I am honestly shocked to learn that he segregated the navy by forcing African Americans to leave their posts and work in the kitchen or boiler room. I do find some personal value in knowing the true story of one of my country's presidents. Loewen has taught me a valuable lesson when it comes to believing the first thing I am told. Doing my own research and finding different opinions on a subject can never hurt.
According to Loewen, one of the reasons we allow fiction to pervade our American history has to deal with pride. As a country, we want to preserve the image of our "American heroes." By admitting that some of the people we have placed high up on a pedestal are not perfect, we are being the opposite of patriotic. These "American heroes" tend to give us a sense of hope that we too can achieve the American dream and be the victorious underdog. Loewen also describes that we feel the need to speak respectively about the past of our country. Speaking respectively can be somewhat limiting because some people feel that they are not able to bring up the mistakes that were made in the past. We seem to just push aside the various negative occurrences of history in order to focus on the positive.
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