As a history major at Utah Valley University, and single mom raising two teenagers, I believe it important for my children to understand and acknowledge the historical roots of present-day racism. We cannot heal our racial differences as a nation if we do not grapple with the fact that our country was founded on principles of white supremacy.
Defenders of Confederate statues wrongly claim that it was a lack of compromise, and not slavery, that led to the Civil War. Our tendency to sanitize our historical memory of slavery has brought us to a point where we believe we have left slavery behind us.