Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World: by Jack McIver Weatherford

The title of the book has two inaccuracies amounting to lies, to begin with.

First and foremost, they are NOT Indian. The European migrants knew this, Columbus knew this, and for sake of keeping a falsehood so Columbus would not risk his reputation or lose his head the sailors working with him who all knew this were sworn to say the opposite. Everyone knew Columbus had not reached India, and everyone nevertheless insists on calling the natives of western continent "Indian", perpetrating a lie, not merely an inaccuracy.

This is doubly racist, since it deprives the said natives of their own identity to begin with, and also no one has asked India if there is any connection whatsoever between the people that lived in a land across the world and India (yes, of ancient trade and exchange of skills, but not populations or identity). The falsehood dumps all non European non African non Oriental non Islamic people into one basket, a huge racism of an assumed hierarchy and separating the high and the low and the others nowhere. It is stupid, racist, ignorant, false, and high time it stopped. High time the natives of the western continent were able to assume their own identity. Unless they wished to claim Indian ancestry and to return to India, that is. Unlikely, since if anything they are connected to Siberia and Mongolia and Pacific islands, which makes far more sense.

Which brings one to another racist imposition of a name, that of the continent. Vespucci Amerigo was one of the sailors who supposedly discovered the continent, and to impose his name on the continent, not even asking a native what they called their land, is supreme racism. America is a racist term by definition.

And then, to belatedly allow that the natives "contributed" to US and "transformed the world" - hellow, they did not massacre all newly arriving migrants, in fact they helped the migrants settle like all good neighbours do, and so they in fact are the founding stone of the edifice in every way! That is only in the north, while in the southern and central parts the migrants were plundering marauders who destroyed everything precious in name of faith. "They had astronomy, architecture, arts, crafts; European migrants had guns and gunpowder" is perhaps a rephrasing of the famous assessing of the encounter, but pretty good to give the idea.

Of course they were givers! They had a superior system in terms of environment as well, which is only recognised now that the fear of global warming and fear about a lack of future for humanity has made some - not all - people do a double take! In addition to what others failed to recognise, they also had potato and tomato and chillies and chocolate, and where in the world can people do without every one of these indeed! Germans post wwi survived on potato as do poor in many a societies even now.

For that matter, the huge (and mostly unnecessary - who ever died or fell sick for lack of face paint?) cosmetic industry of west derived its origin and ideology from an oriental culture of China and Japan where faces of Geishas and upper class women were painted masks, which got copied to Europe for fashion, while the system of administrative examinations and system generally was copied by British and integrated into their own structure of governance.

A good amount of vocabulary in English is borrowed from Arabic, Persian and India, while Latin and Greek are younger siblings if not daughters of Sanskrt (and therefore the ease of India in European languages beginning with English), realised and perforce admitted by Europe long before the present era of denial.

And of course Africa, with her stolen raw materials (like other colonised lands) and
kidnapped men and women (unlike other lands) that made US prosper before the civil war dismantled the slavery and dislocated the now free ex-slaves once again, with equality still a faraway goal and animosity of ex-slavers growing to high pitch. Solution? Liberia? Workers work for food and return, much like Germans would like Turks and others to do, is the pleasure of pale colour races?

Gratitude at the very least is way past due. Acknowledgement likewise.
Yes, the world gave and Europe received and forgot to say thank you. These belated acknowledgements are better than never, and what next? An equal status? For the givers who received only victimisation in return?