I'd say that is a difference without a distinction. Two kids sit in the same class hear the same thing. One is has their opinion changed, the other doesn't. This happens all the time.

Between Jefferson and Pol Pot, OK. Jefferson and the Weather Underground...tough sell if you're black or an indigenous American being held in chattel slavery or being genocided because the White Guys say it is their "manifest destiny" to kill you and take your land.

Pol Pot killed a LOT of Cambodians. We killed almost all the Indigenous Americans. Whose worse? Why did Pol Pot come to power, not just BTW? Because we, the US, illegally dropped so much ordinance on Cambodia that the government collapsed and in the power vacuum the Khmer Rouge took power.

Thomas Jefferson's ledgers show him calculating how much profit he makes by breeding his slaves to work in the shops at Monticello. He was brutal with his slaves, only keeping them alive because they made him money. Worse than Pol Pot? IMO no. Worse than the Weather Underground? Hell yes again IMO.

With all due respect - and since I obviously wasn't there - is there not a possibility that you only remember your teachers talking about the bad things the US did and not the good, because the former made you so angry? I know when I'm angry I tend to not hear parts of what others say.