DAC genocide project missed a few things

We must be aware.

On Jan. 27, the Diversity Achievement Center set up a "Field of Flags" outside our library windows. We saw the colors. Some of us read the numbers. It was a display on the crime of genocide. But maybe there was more to understand.

Do we think?

Chelsea Baker, an LBCC student said, "It was shocking seeing that many flags." Jill Mahler, another student, said, " It was visually interesting, caught a lot of attention." The display was effective.

The DAC people should be proud. They wanted to raise attention. "It wasn't meant as a shock but as a reminder," said Toni Klohk, DAC coordinator."I want students to be aware."

We read the numbers. We saw the colors. We're aware.

But were we getting a true message?

Though Ricky Zipp, DAC team leader, said there was, "No special colors," the black flags under our country's name were ugly. We had the highest numbers on the whole display, 10 million. Beside us Joseph Stalin looked like a city gangster in a yellow suit. We seemed the worst villains of all.

But are we? Let us think. Hard.

I have Iroquois blood from my grandmother's side. I would never deny what we did to the American Indians. They did die. Ten million is not too high a number. But there can be more that we weren't told.

Guenter Lewy, writing on George Mason University History News Network, wrote, "It is thought that 75 to 90 percent [of American Indians] died of disease." It was called a "virgin soil epidemic." As an example, we all know about Squanto, the Indian who saved the Pilgrims. His whole village was wiped out by smallpox.

Those black flags were symbolizing a gigantic American murder? Really?

Yes, we murdered. There were men who treated Indians like dogs. But genocide is against the first sentence of our Constitution. So we have lavished gifts on the present day Indians in sorrow for our crime.

We are one of the most benevolent countries in the world.

Why must we bear the black flags?

In the genocide display, right next to us, were those yellow flags giving a  mere seven million murders to Stalin. An average estimate by scholars is actually 20 million, twice the amount shown under America. Zipp said in defense of his numbers, "He [Stalin] did it so fast...people just didn't know." Only they did know.

If the DAC wishes us to be "aware" of genocide why didn't they give the right numbers? And why do they consider it all right to choose not to show the deaths from abortion of 48 million or more possible people  as a genocide?

Of course the DAC can make mistakes, they are only people. But those could be costly.

We must think. Or we could never understand why more people were killed in the 20th century than any other. It could have been the growth of atheistic philosophies. We could learn to hate the country that gave us birth. We could learn to give up our individuality in an attempt at mass diversity. We could learn to rely on emotions when we need to understand statistics. We can be lazy. We could not think.

Beware.

Some murder statistics:
Armenian massacre-1.5 million killed by Turks who objected to their religion: burned alive, slaughtered in a death march or in private atrocities
Rwandan massacre-800,000 murdered by Hutu, the ethnic majority in their country
Joseph Stalin-20 million or even more, mainly from gulag deaths or forced famine
Adolf Hitler-11-17 million from concentration camps and individual atrocities during WWII
Mao Tse-tung-45 million murdered in camps and avoidable starvation