In the world of today we live in a "Politically Correct" atmosphere. Racism is frowned upon, and equality is supposed to be king. At least that is the ideal we all seem to be striving for. It is an ideal I believe in, we all deserve the same opportunities. What bothers me is when people play with history, and decided it is time to change it.
The classic example of "cleaning up" history comes when period literature is censored or removed from libraries. Take Mark Twain's work with Huckleberry Fin. This book which is considered America's first great novel speaks in the terms of the era including the use of the word "nigger" which was a term of the time. Today it is a word not to be used, but in historical context it is different. In the book it is used 216 times and is accurate from a contextual and historical perspective. Why censor history to make it politically correct. Isn't it more important that people learn the truth of the time?
You see this all the time with movies that take place in the past, but there is complete racial equality. Are we supposed to just pretend the past didn't happen. It may be a past we are not proud of, but it is still our past and our shared heritage. The same goes for the Confederate flag. It was the symbol of the Confederate States of America, not a white supremacy tool. It has been used as that before, but so have pitchforks. Should all pitchforks be banned? Lets just look at history as it happened. Use words to put it in the right context. Even though that is a bad word, it wasn't then. We have to accept that those of the past were a product of their times. Some strove to rise to the next level, some did not. It does not change the positive contributions they made.
We need to accept that history is not a pretty subject. The Nazis had eugenics, and that makes them evil. But wait, so did we. Well they were anti-Semites, and then again so were many in the US. The truth is that history is not pretty. After all we all respect and admire the founding father of our country George Washington, the slave owner, who had a great victory by going against war tradition and attacking pre-dawn on the 26th of December. Take history for what it was and portray is accurately. It hurts to remind us of the past, but the past has lessons that we all need to know.
-UW
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