Jerry Carr: Yes, rectify the past

In a July 9 column “Old N.C. heroes fall from favor,” Rob Christensen opposed doing anything about the many memorials in this state to racist leaders of the past. He argued that we cannot judge these people by today’s standards; they lived in a racist era.

In a July 16 letter “Memorials of disgrace,” I said there was never a single standard in the past; black people always judged slavery and later segregation as evil as did many white people.

This year Duke and ECU decided to replace the names on campus buildings of white supremacist leader Gov. Charles Aycock.

In his March 8 column “Judging from afar is slippery slope,” Christensen reiterated that we cannot judge the past by today’s standards. He then proceeded to judge quite a number of things from the past like “slavery,” “sexism” and the “brutal” war in the Philippines in order to argue that rectifying all the many wrongs would be absurd; it would result in a “political cleansing” of university buildings. So, the past can’t be rectified because it can’t be judged.

When we judge the past, it is too much to rectify so forget it. I agree there is a lot to rectify, and it is good to see that people are getting on with it.

This story was originally published March 24, 2015 at 1:55 PM with the headline "Jerry Carr: Yes, rectify the past."