Thomas Sowell has an interesting observation regarding the Wright Brothers and diversity. As we all know, the left's concept of diversity is shallow and cosmetic. But when this limited world view seeps into our classrooms and begins to taint the teaching of history, it's time to take notice. This revisionist history, where relatively trivial figures are elevated to the status of Washington, Jefferson, or Lincoln just because of their ethnicity is truly ridiculous. It all reminds me of a radio broadcast I listened to a few years back. The subject of the show was ancient African cultures, and the guest was a professor from one of the Atlanta black colleges. He proceeded to denigrate many of the non- black ancient cultures, and his argument was based on the "fact" that they all stole their knowledge from African cultures. Yes, the Greeks must have stole the concept of democracy from some hapless African tribe, and the ancient Mesopotamians must have cribbed the concept of writing from some more advanced culture on the African continent. Of course, nobody knows what happened to all the alleged advanced African cultures, but that's beside the point. It was a sad exercise, but thankfully it was a call in show and one woman called in and completely shut the professor down. In a thick southern drawl she said "you must be really insecure about your own culture to have to claim credit for the accomplishments of others." The professor sputtered on, but never really came back from this simple observation. This woman's point still applies today. There are plenty of important contributions made by minorities in history without us having to invent new ones or elevate relatively unimportant ones in the interest of "diversity." Downplaying the accomplishments of white males does nothing to elevate the accomplishments of non whites. Yes, much of the history of this country is dominated by white males, but this is history, not some story book. You have to tell it like it is. Imagine the outcry if some white historians tried to downplay the suffering of black slaves, or claimed that some white folks did more for civil rights than Dr. King. Heads would certainly roll.

Painting a fanciful picture of diversity and calling it history is no better than the practice of white supremacists denying that the Jewish holocaust ever happened. This is history. It's sometimes ugly, cruel, and unfair, and it's not always going to be sympathetic to certain political agendas. Putting more emphasis on changing the future rather than changing the past would be a good idea for some of those on the left.