Manifest Destiny
Slaughtered Native Americans. Stolen and enslaved Africans. DDT-soaked Mexicans. Interred Japanese Americans. Rejected, Nazi-fleeing European Jews. Euthanized “imbeciles” and “defectives”. Compulsorily sterilized inmates, women, poor, disabled, and minorities. All of it encoded into Law, among countless other initiatives, and enacted over centuries. The United States is a nation founded on — and defined by — racism, and its citizens are still deeply entrenched in its practice.
11 min readMay 5, 2021
Manifest Destiny was the early settlers’ idea that God himself favored the culturally and racially superior “White” Americans, which demanded that they subdue, convert and/or dispatch “savages” of all other colors and creeds, then take their rightful place as overlords of the world, and the people in it.
Historian David Dorado Romo, a descendent of Mexican origins, told The Atlantic in the latest issue that “we have deep amnesia in this country,” citing his shock at the discovery that his Mexican migrant forebears were forced to wear Zyklon B-soaked clothing and be sprayed in the face with now-banned…
