The Bad Injun myth lets Americans displace guilt for genocide onto victims

Evidence

Really secrecy is about mind control. It’s about deliberately imposed historical amnesia. If you can suppress all knowledge of something like Operation Sphinx for decades, you allow the myth of American decency and goodness to endure. — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 1087 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Vann was sure that he would be able to see what motivated the Vietnamese officers with whom he would be working and persuade them to do what was in their best interest and in the interest of the United States. … History had not shown Americans to be fallible as other peoples were. Americans were different. History did not apply to them. — Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 121 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Dehumanization causes perpetrators to perceive victims as nonhuman and therefore not entitled to moral obligation — Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence; Suppressed knowledge allows the myth of American decency to endure. — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 1087; Americans mistakenly believe they are different from other nations. — Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 121 (+1 more)

Related

• Suppressed knowledge allows the myth of American decency to endure. (similarity 0.84)
• Americans mistakenly believe they are different from other nations. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Suppressed knowledge allows the myth of American decency to endure. #corroborates (0.55) — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 1087
• Americans mistakenly believe they are different from other nations. #corroborates (0.40) — Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 121
• Europeans project their repressed evil onto the racialized Other #complicates (0.35)