History reminds us who we are

There is a trend among smart people to see themselves as good and believe that anything they see as wrong should be named as such. The problem for me is that they choose me.

I was raised in South Carolina. I know why Fort Sumter is a national landmark and why there are stars on the facade of our State House. These are history markers that speak to a long-dead war between North and South over a disagreement about who was in charge of our country. And I don’t want to forget this.

You can erase the reminders, you can rewrite history, and you can try to destroy the statues to the past. But you cannot change people. That is the problem. Let us not forget that we have a past and be proud that our dead relatives figured out how to survive it. Otherwise we would not be here.

This story was originally published October 1, 2017 at 6:31 PM with the headline "History reminds us who we are."