Emily Moreland
Longwood University
The Lynchburg Colony The video that we watched about the Lynchburg Colony in a word was horrifying. I had a few other observations other than that however. The main thing that shocked me was that I had never heard of this before. I don’t understand how people could just treat people like they were not even human. I guess that I have heard of things happening like this, but never in the United States and to this extreme. To treat people like they are worthless just back in the 1980s boggles my mind. The entire time I watched the video I felt disgusted and I really couldn’t believe it. One could tell from the people that were interviewed that this horrible thing they had gone through had left a lasting impact on their lives and had scarred them. Their countenance and the way they talked almost brought me to tears. When the video talked about how Hitler used the United States’ idea of sterilization for Germany, it made me think a little bit if whether that was true or if the movie wanted to get more of a rise out of people. It is hard to know the truth, especially when most people didn’t know about this colony. Taking away from this video, I think that it has given me the realization that no matter what kind of biases or stereotypes that I place on people, this video will remind me to never let me act like I’m better than someone. The people that institutionalized these people thought that they had the right and that they were superior to these people they called feeble minded. However, throughout the entire video, the people who worked at the colony were the ones that seemed feeble minded or crazy. I don’t believe anyone can just look at a person and decide they are better than that person or that person needs to be institutionalized because you have no idea what they’ve been through and what made them that