re: Ben Affleck wanted his slave owner ancestor 'censored' from Finding Your Roots

quote:

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Why is revisionism bad?

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Because it ignores the morals and values they had at the time and how they saw society and ran it. And it ignores context of the situation in the historical lesson. There are probably things we do today that are moral and we don't bat an eye at that will be considered evil and immoral decades to hundreds of years down the road and we would disagree with their interpretation.

Slavery in this country was nothing new and it predates this country's history. Many powerful civilizations like the Romans, Atzecs, Mayans, Medieval europe, and Chinese dynasties heavily depended on slave labor and were far more brutal to their slaves than the USA and yet none of them are considered evil empires and societies like the antebellum south is viewed today. Strange.