I have never seen the human species so lost.  It is one thing to evolve, to shed hatred and racism as part of us growing as an evolved species.  It is quite another to see hatred in people that does not exist or to push hatred towards others.  Bad shit has happened since the beginning of time.  Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.  When we erase history because we find it offensive, it leaves the door open to forget that history.  Forgetting that history means it will be repeated.

A prime example of the above can be seen in video games.  Including horrible things in a video game is sometimes the only education kids get on a topic.  The new Call of Duty goes back to its roots and World War II.  Someone made a comment on Facebook that they were now “doing this shit to their kind (blacks since technically the people in the picture were not Americans so cannot be called African Americans).”  My first comment almost was, “You mean people?”  It doesn’t matter who, hanging people from trees is wrong.  My second comment was that according to the screenshot, it was difficult to tell which ethnicity the characters were.  After doing a little research on that screenshot, they were actually Jewish.  People were upset.  Good!  Don’t forget history!

Hitler killed millions of Jews.  Stalin killed at least twice as many Christians.  Because history sucks, should we forget it?  Hell no!  The problem with removing Confederate monuments because they owned slaves is that during that time period, most politicians did own slaves.  In fact, the only founding father of the United States to NOT own slaves was John Adams.  Does this mean that America was founded on evil bullshit and we should go back to kneeling for the Queen?  To take it a step further, should we not kneel to the Queen because during the French and Indian War, the British won against the Native Americans, French, and Americans and continued their “oppression?”  Fuck no!  It just means that no one is perfect, and we should take lessons learned from history so we do not repeat them.  If we wipe out all the wrongs that have been done in history, we should just go back to living naked in the Garden of Eden.  All of America should go back to the native peoples.  Spain should be punished for bringing disease to Central America and wiping out civilizations.  We as individuals, and a people, are not defined by the mistakes of our pasts, but in how we grow and learn from them.