Spielberg's Lincoln

[Gene C]

I'm not descended from slaves, but *I* resent the fact that the U.S., touted as a beacon of light to the world, started out with 250 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow, something that only ended during my childhood, while the aftereffects linger on.

If we just "move on," and choose to "forget" the shameful aspects of our history, two things will happen:
**We won't be able to adequately address the lingering effects of, in this case, slavery;
**We will act ignorantly of our history and make similar mistakes again.

I agree with your "just move on and choose to forget" comments, but if we were not a "beacon of light to the world", the Gettysburg address would be meaningless, and we would not have the imigration problem we have had for over 30 years.