Karens Road

I am constantly changing and growing as a person. I was feeling pretty negative feelings about a post I read that talked about how are kids are being taught history that is not always the most accurate. The facts have become known because as we dig around we find out more information.

A comment, by Randy, made me stop and think.

He said, “In fairness, a lot of things were done by people a few hundred years ago that we’d be disgusted by now, yet they also were part of what brought us here today.

I don’t think anyone pretends that Columbus landed here and was a founding father or something. His legacy is that he discovered the new world (i.e. this hemisphere). Of course we now have evidence that the Vikings (among others) did this notably earlier than he did, but most were completely unaware of this, so his discovery (and what followed) was one of the biggest moments in history, period.

Some of our founding fathers had slaves. Should we all throw on anarchy t-shirts, tie scarves around our faces, and start vandalizing government buildings? Find any culture that is innocent.

Native cultures from the Americas took part in a lot of human sacrifice, prior to the arrival of the white man. Do we condemn them? No, we praise them and want to learn about their intriguing history, which led them to where they are today. But we have some sort of self-hate that forces us to need to bash those icons that brought us to where we are today.

Blech.”

The Blech part stung a bit but that is ok. I needed a wake up call! I like what he said and I plan to remember his words. I will appreciate what our founding fathers did, good and bad, and cut out the negativity. Thanks Randy. I would rather be a positive person any day of the week.