Mountain Meadows Massacre

We listen to a lot of podcasts, a lot of history based podcasts to be exact. Some of these are very good for putting me right to sleep. But sometimes we get one, and I listen to the whole thing, and I'm very awake as a result. Last night was one of those episodes.

When we went to bed last night the first podcast Doug pulled up was Dark History's episode about the Black Dog of Bungay. Very interesting but nothing new to me, I fell asleep rather quickly.  Doug sets the Spotify to turn off at the end of the episode. Which is okay, when I actually am asleep by the end of the episode. Sometimes, I'm still awake but I know he's asleep, so I won't start up another. 

At some point between 2 and 3am, Doug and I were both awake at the same time. I went down to the bathroom and he started another podcast. True Crime Historian is one we've listened to for years, and the latest episode concerns the Meadow Mountains Massacre. 

It isn't often that I hear a story or a podcast about a topic I know nothing about. But I'd never heard this or knew about it. A lot of history podcasts go over the same topics, over and over, but no one I knew had covered this one. 

And it got my attention. 

I listened to the full episode, and after it was done just ... laid there in the dark thinking about how horrible it was. The sky began to lighten, it was 6am. I got up. 

What an absolutely shitty thing. What a horrible atrocity. And like, I had no idea. 

The last time I learned about something super epic and horrible was the Tulsa Oklahoma Black Wall Street Massacre, which just marked its 105th anniversary. Again, no idea of this piece of history. 

There are things that have happened in this nation that a lot of people want to just simply cover over and forget. To "Make America Great Again," as it were we just focus on the good stuff! The COOL Stuff! Yay! Huzzah! Siss Boom Bah!

But to be honest, and let's get some real talk here, this nation has done a lot of super shitty things. These two examples, among many others, things perpetrated by our government and leaders all the way down to neighbor versus neighbor. 

In this 250th year of the country, where everyone (well, almost) is working hard to celebrate all the awesomeness of US (US. us) we can and should acknowledge the deviation from awesomeness straight into the realm of downright evil. 

I'm having a rough time with all this Make America Great Again business. Great for whom? Great when? Great when we didn't let black people drink from water fountains or sit at lunch counters in Woolworth's? When we denied children education because of their skin color? When we strung humans up in trees for crimes they didn't commit? 

What era was our "Great" era? 

Anyway. There is a lot to think about, and people get hackles up on both sides of any argument. I'll just say that I'm feeling the excitement of this. 

Not a super uplifting post, I will separate the digits from this and post this solo. You deserve a better post than me bemoaning history.