Why What You Care About Won't Matter
Only July 26, 2017, everyone in America was GOING CRAZY over the decision to NOT let transgendered people serve in the Military.
Fast forward less than three weeks and now everybody is worried about the long dead, General Lee. As well as many other confederate war heroes. Apparently the new "in" is to be "out" with anything that remotely resembles racism. However positive as this may seem, we are forgetting one thing - this IS our history as Americans.
When I was a kid, we read a book in high school called "The Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom. She was a Holocaust survivor who was imprisoned for hiding Jews. Pretty much HER WHOLE FAMILY was sent off to the concentration camps for having empathy. A few of her family members died in there.
Part of the study was to go to West Bloomfield, Michigan and visit the Holocaust center. Besides the MANY visuals that showed just how INHUMANE the Nazis were to the Jews, we also were treated to something else; a Holocaust survivor.
She spoke of what happened in her childhood and how it effected her family. She even had the tattoo on her forearm to prove it.
Fast forward about thirty years and now you have people want to ERASE our history by ripping down statues of people that they deem to be "racist" or "negative". The question is then posed: should we rip down EVERY memorial that is a rememberance of a harder time? Should we NOT honor the people of NYC that fell during 9/11?
That was a pretty shitty time too.
Granted, 100% of the victims were innocents. However, if we are going to "ERASE" our lousy history, let's erase it all! Let's FORGET what happened to the victims of 9/11. Let's FORGET that civilians and law enforcement and firefighters and EMS lost their lives that day.
Whoa! Wait! Hold your fingers for a minute, you're getting out of hand, Leilani.
Actually, no I'm not. The REASON that we have statues and Holocaust memorial museums and 9/11 museums and every kind of homage to history is so that we NEVER FORGET.
Do we need to like the fact that our ancestors enslaved black people?
No, we do not. It's actually quite embarrassing and shows very little respect for humanity. It HURTS ME that we would ever treat a HUMAN BEING that way.
Do we need to "FORGET" what happened?
Um, no.
Why?
Because as human beings we learn from our mistakes. I don't think it's fair that my friends' ancestors were slaves. Hell, I don't even think it's fair that we have to have this conversation.
I've never enslaved anybody.
That's the honest to God's truth too. As it is for over 323 MILLION Americans. Those days are over. And have been for over 150 years.
The REASON that we shouldn't pull down the statues or ERASE our history is simple.
Never forget.
Never forget what we did that was good. Never forget what we did that was bad. Never forget that we HURT people and treated them terribly.
We've lost a lot of lives in the last 150 plus years. Some to slavery. Some to war. Some to terrorism. Some to genocide.
But we can ONLY move forward if we don't forget our past.
My name is Leilani. REMIND ME why we have evolved and grown as a nation. It's because we NEVER FORGET.
