Mark Charles & Soong-Chan Rah - Unsettling Truths - (Book Review)

Indeed, this is an unsettling book, presenting the case that this country has been totally based on white European domination from the beginning going all way the back to 15th Century papal edicts which gave European explorers of the Americas the "right" to exploit and enslave indigenous populations which they call "The Doctrine of Discovery" to build a country based on genocide and slavery, leading to American triumphalism and what came to be called Manifest Destiny including Lincoln's ethnic genocide and a view of the Civil War as a way for north and south to eliminate slavery while continuing white domination by other means. You cannot discover lands already inhabited. The reader is cogently reminded that history is written by the winners with often tragic results. Now we have an entire political party in power nakedly and openly perpetuating this agenda to continue the founding ideology.
Whew!

I wonder what Charles Beard would say.

In some cases the book goes way overboard grinding too many axes.  Comparing Lincoln to Hitler for sure.

This book would not be required in high school history classes.

"You cannot discover lands already inhabited."  P. 13

The Doctrine of Discovery is a set of legal principles that governed the European colonizing powers, particularly regarding the administration of indigenous land.  It is the "the primary legal precedent that still controls native affairs and rights. . . . an international law formulated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries."  From a theological perspective, the legal and political role of The Doctrine of Discovery is rooted in a dysfunctional theological imagination that shaped the European colonial settler worldview.  P. 15

The doctrine emerged from a series of fifteenth-century papal bulls, which are official decrees by the pope that carry the full weight of his ecclesial office.  The first one was issued on June 18, 1452.  The decree gave Portugal the right to invade, conquer, subdue, reduce to slavery, and vanquish all pagans, Saracens (Muslims), and enemies of Christ.  The bull recognized all peoples outside of Europe as "other."  According to these authors, this legitimized the African slave trade.  P. 15-16

The papacy offered spiritual justification for European conquest.  Explore, discover, conquer.  Columbus had the church at his back.  

This is the background for how Columbus could be recognized as the discoverer of the Americas even though the Americas were already populated with people.  

Another bull issued in 1454 allowed European Catholic nations to expand their dominion over "discovered" lands.  The church believed that what benefited the colonial powers also benefited the church.  According to these authors, slavery and genocide in the "discovered" lands began here. P.16

With papal sanction, an assumed spiritual authority,  Columbus could be recognized as the discoverer of the Americas even they were already occupied.  P. 20

Columbus's atrocities would find justification in the belief that all of these actions would result in evangelization.  The spread of the European version of the Christian message would justify violence in all forms found in Western imperialism.  P. 21

On December 19, 2009, President Obama signed House Resolution 3326, the 2010 Department of Defense Appropriation Act. On page 45 of the 67 page bill in subsection 8113 there is "Apology to Native People of the United States." The content is a 7- bullet-point apology that speaks in general terms without mentioning any specific tribes, broken treaties, or specific injustices, but without using the term it is an apology for our country's racial genocide.  There is a disclaimer at the end saying that nothing in this section is legally binding. To date, this apology has never been publicly announced or publicized by the executive or legislative branches.  P. 190-191

In recent years there has been a trend repudiating The Doctrine of Discovery.  P.183

The authors speak of "the trauma of white America" referring to corporate sin and corporate trauma vs. the American tradition of hyper-individualism which prevents any kind of nationwide reconciliation and contrition.  The latter is never going to happen in my opinion.  The better term would be the indifference of white America.  P. 188