Recasting History, 2020

Recasting History, 2020

     The awful and tragic death of George Floyd (May 25) has brought about a lot of soul searching and recrimination across the United States and the world. Perhaps most of us realize that things must still change for the better for African-Americans and people of color in our country and around the globe, to improve the way the police system is structured and enforced, and levy increased scrutiny of other inequalities that are prevalent in our country and elsewhere.

To start off on a note of change and reform, I believe one area where our overall society can improve or help impoverished groups of people, somewhat in the mode of reparations, a notion that some believe ought to be embraced, is for colleges and universities to offer more grants and scholarships to young people who otherwise are not given those opportunities for higher learning and the resulting improved life paths. What would this look like?

The colleges that have the most money would create outreach grant programs to at-risk schools around the nation, and also the juvenile detention systems and the adult prisons where there are many young people already locked up. Give them some funded in-roads to having a future. Also, major and minor colleges should have programs to connect to socio-economically challenged schools, helping mentor the pupils and grooming them through the college system.

Universities and the governments should have the means and the initiative to do this. We could help thousands and thousands of youth of all colors who would not have these options otherwise.

What of the former slave owners, forefathers of our history like Washington and Jefferson?

We cannot cancel our entire history. We have to keep the founders and the original framers of our modern freedoms, warts and all. I understand rebranding the names of former Confederate heroes. Good luck, Stone Mountain! Davis, Lee, and Stonewall Jackson? Hmm...

I understand the need to remove some statues and memorials.

Let us not go overboard and erase what has been done.

Our country is still great, but we have had many imperfect heroes who were products of their times...

We should not delete their places in our history.

Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King on our currency? Sounds great, let's do it.