Learning from history

I find myself a little mixed about this decision to remove restored 'colored' signs from a Texas county courthouse.

I'm not black, so the specter of slavery and racism can not effect me the way it can effect people who's relatives were forced into slavery and faced segregation. So, on that end, I'm glad the court house responded to the concerns.

On the other hand, I find things like this a good reminder of what we have done in the past and, hopefully, a way to keep us from doing it in the future. Whitewashing our racist past makes it easier to ignore our racist present.

"We don't need to be reminded what was done before," said Bea Taylor, who is black. "We haven't forgotten."

This is true, but we as a country sometimes forget these things too easily.