This extraordinary editorial by Leonard Pitts who writes for the Miami Herald could just as easily have the word “Indian” in place of “Black.” It’s amazing that – more than a decade into the 21st century and more than fifty years since the start of the modern civil rights movement, with a biracial president in the Oval Office – the issue of race and ethnicity in this country hasn’t waned. When I consider some South Carolinians’ celebration of the sesquicentennial of the start of the Civil War in 2010 – insisting the conflict was all about states’ rights – it’s as depressing as it is aggravating. While some White southerners have been fighting the Civil War since 1860 (and still haven’t won!), others continue to believe Christopher Columbus really did discover America. Change may come slowly on the cultural front, but as Jorge Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” And, remembering the past means remembering it exactly as it happened; not as people wish or thought it had happened.
Chief Writing Wolf 