Janette, I hear you.   I have heard your comments from those closest to me all my life.   I think all good people in the world are very much like each other, and all the very bad people are, too.   Kindness, sharing, fairness, healing, giving and other aspects of virtue are recognizable, as are smiles.   Cruelty, destruction, taking, selfishness, deception and other human traits are also as universally understood as the oceans of tears they inspire.

We aren't all Americans the same way, and that is reality.   Natives have been in this land for over 13,000 years.   Others, barely 300, and the US as it is just 100!  The history of what we call America - the land - IS Native and Native American.  No Americans have to quit talking about their history here, not Natives and not African people, no matter how uncomfortable others are.  A few centuries of extermination, slavery and stealing don't change the reality of the history of the land and the ALL THE PEOPLE in it.