I believe that human beings are creatures of habit, and I do not exclude myself from this statement. For example, I talk with the same group of friends most of the time, I like eating at the same restaurants, and I like reading the same books, and watching the same movies , because I know the ones I like.
When Christofer Columbus came to the Americans, I can only assume the Natives saw a giant change coming, and a bad one at that, and I think for the most part, they were right. As Columbus mentions in his journals, the Natives at first did not want to speak, interact, or have anything to do with the Europeans, and rightly so. They were most likely thinking that these men are new people, they can't be trusted.
There Goes the Neighborhood.
In that situation, the Natives turned out to be right. The settlers destroyed forests, killed animals to be sold in Spain. They enslaved, hurt, and passed diseases onto the Americans. They had every right to be thinking "There goes the neighborhood".
However, in present day, people think this all the time, for reasons they probably should not. A big example of this is high school in general. In Company, everyone is always nervous in the beginning of the year about what new freshman are going to come and ruin the whole club/crew for everyone. People talk about it for a while leading up to the beginning of The Company, and after a while, it does not matter whether the new people are actually really cool, because everyone has already built it up in their heads that no one will measure up to the people already there, so by default, everyone ends up thinking the new people are not that great.
There Goes the Neighborhood.
There are many other examples of this in our society that are caused by assumptions and persecutions based on things like race, ethnicity, and gender, to name a few. As a community, we can fix this together, by opening ourselves up more to the unknown, and accepting that there are things that we can still try for the first time, instead of continuing to read that same book, watch that same movie, or eat at that same restaurant, over and over again.
did you just spell christopher (columbus) wrong
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I'd disagree with the bit about the Native Americans not wanting anything to do with the Europeans upon their arrival. On the other hand, most of them were quite receptive of their sparkly, advanced goods and pretty English faces, and only a few seemed hesitant. The Native Americans seemed to have a reputation for being hospitable, and I think the "there goes the neighborhood" sentiment only really came around when the Europeans started opening fire on them and colonizing their land.
So true about the human habits and general unwillingness to change, though. I don't think Company is the only group who underestimates freshmen either, particularly new ones. (coughfrackies)
I enjoyed reading your piece a lot. I like how you connected the habits of native Americans to the mindset many of us still retain. Whether or not these ideas are true they still linger in our heads, but that is true for many aspects of human nature.
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