The Victors Write The History Books

I've been staring at my computer screen at a loss of what to write. What can I say that will make you understand that we have to keep going?

I watched a video by John Oliver yesterday that really broke down what we are facing as a society when looking at the police and how to move forward. Those are the key words I need to stress: how to move forward. That is what John Oliver is trying to stress here too. We cannot keep repeating history. John Oliver talks about how the conversations we're having now we've been having for the last 100 years of protests, and the same lack of action as well.

When I was a sophomore in High School, I was blessed with an amazing AP U.S. History teacher. He would teach us the curriculum, but spent much more time helping us to understand the real world, and how the history books didn't provide all truths. He was the first person to tell us that it was the winning side that wrote history. He was the first teacher to point out all the careful wording the text books used when talking about all our "victories". He constantly told us, "Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it in the future". He told us, in deep transparency, that he feared a day when people would say that the holocaust never happened, and that if we weren't honest about history that the "careful wording" would keep twisting things until truth was lost. He wanted us to be armed with knowledge, and believed we could make a difference. I have thought about this often since High School, and I think about it even more now.

We can't keep going the way we are, we just can't. The system has to change, and only the people can change it. As time passes don't quiet your voices again. Keep standing, keep fighting, and keep demanding change, because human rights are not something we can compromise on. If you haven't yet, start standing, start fighting, and start demanding change. Don't let those who would stand for oppression carefully word the truth into submission. I'll be damned if I find myself on the wrong side of history. My teacher believed in us, so I'm going to believe in us too.