Dwain Northey (Gen X)

No civilization has ever leapt forward by pretending its mistakes were triumphs. Medicine didn’t advance because doctors clung to leeches and bloodletting while insisting everything was fine. Airplanes didn’t get safer by ignoring crashes and telling passengers, “Don’t worry, that nose dive into the cornfield never happened.” Progress requires admitting failure, owning mistakes, and, yes, staring ugly truths squarely in the face. But apparently, in America 2025, the hot new trend is to whitewash history and pretend slavery was just a quirky little detour on the road to freedom.

This administration seems hell-bent on erasing the “uncomfortable bits” of our national story, like slavery—a 250-year institution that built the economy, tore families apart, and left scars still visible today. But sure, let’s not put that in museums or archives. Because what’s history if not a Hallmark card version of events, with all the violence, chains, and human degradation neatly airbrushed out? Apparently, we’re supposed to believe that pretending slavery wasn’t so bad will heal wounds. Spoiler alert: it won’t. It will just make us a nation of historical amnesiacs congratulating ourselves for our “greatness” while ignoring the bones beneath the foundation.

And here’s the kicker: tearing down Confederate statues isn’t erasing history. A bronze hunk of Robert E. Lee on a horse is not an encyclopedia; it’s a celebration. Monuments glorify, they don’t educate. Taking them down doesn’t mean slavery didn’t happen—it means we’ve stopped honoring the people who literally killed to keep other humans in chains. If someone thinks removing a statue erases history, I’d like to introduce them to a little thing called a book.

What’s actually erasing history is the active whitewashing—the museum exhibits scrubbed of reality, the textbooks rewritten to describe slavery as “involuntary relocation” (yes, that gem actually appeared in some drafts). That’s not healing, that’s gaslighting. It’s like Germany deciding the Holocaust was a “temporary housing program” and shutting down Dachau because it might upset someone’s feelings. Except Germany doesn’t do that. Germany says: Look. This happened. It was evil. Never again. America, on the other hand, seems determined to say: Slavery? Gosh, that was just a minor labor dispute—let’s move on!

Progress without accountability is a fantasy. We only move forward by confronting our failures. By refusing to do so, this administration isn’t just stalling progress—it’s dragging us backward into denial. You can’t fix a wound by covering it with a smiley-face sticker. You disinfect it, you stitch it, you admit it happened. America doesn’t become “great” by pretending slavery was a blip—it becomes stronger by saying slavery was monstrous and ensuring its legacy is studied, remembered, and never repeated.

But hey, if the plan is to trade truth for comfort, why stop at slavery? Let’s go all in: maybe teach kids the Great Depression was just a nationwide budget-friendly staycation. Or that Vietnam was a spirited game of capture the flag. After all, who needs reality when you can have a nice, tidy fairy tale?