A reminder on this Columbus Day: throughout history, human progress has always been a series of trade-offs, with winners winning and losers losing. History also teaches that the winners won't always be winners and the losers not always losers, sometimes the underdog wins and the favorite loses.
While individual people and acts may be assigned definitions as good or evil, productive or wasteful, making value judgements about long term effects or trends is almost always subjective - in the eye of the beholder.
For example, the rise of Adolph Hitler and his Third Reich, the "civilization" that was supposed to last a thousand years, lasted twelve (1933-1945).
Slavery lasted roughly 245 years in the United States.
Which was the worst evil?
That comparison only reveals one thing: evil is not always recognized as evil when it is happening, but it is always easy to see when it is concentrated.
The measure of a civilization is not entirely rooted in its past, it is more about how that civilization uses its past to course correct its present to improve its future and to ignore those improvements in the analysis makes any assessment flawed.
Race relations in America is an example of such flawed analysis. America has changed in its approach to race. Sometimes gradually and painfully, sometimes suddenly and positively - but it has changed, it has improved.
But evil is also perpetrated in the name of the good.
It is my belief that things like CRT and the current wave of "anti-racism" that presumes America is foundationally racist and all whites are racist is such an evil. As much as Nazism was about white supremacy and a "pure" white race, the ANTIRA (I thought it deserved an acronym like its radical twin, ANTIFA) is about black supremacy and a "pure" black race. It is easy to understand why a white person who has never had a racist thought in their lives, never met a white supremacist and likely have never considered race at all, might be angry that they are being assumed to be racist.
That anger isn't racism, it is a reaction to being lied about. Being angry about being constantly accused of something of which one is totally innocent is not evidence of racism, no matter what the ANTIRA movement claims. It’s just legitimate anger.
History has value in helping us prevent making the same mistakes over and over again - if we are honest about both the past and the present.
ANTIRA is not honest about either.