Sarah A. Chrisman Quotes

A wise man alters his misconceptions when he learns the truth; a fool tries to beat the truth into the mold of his misconceptions.

The people we find truly anathema are the ones who reduce the past to caricature and distort
it to fit their own bigoted stereotypes. We've gone to events that claimed to be historic fashion
shows but turned out to be gaudy polyester parades with no shadow of reality behind them. As
we heard our ancestors mocked and bigoted stereotypes presented as facts, we felt like we had
gone to an event advertised as an NAACP convention only to discover it was actually a minstrel
show featuring actors in blackface. Some so-called "living history" events really are that bigoted.
When we object to history being degraded this way, the guilty parties shout that they are "just
having fun." What they are really doing is attacking a past that cannot defend itself. Perhaps
they are having fun, but it is the sort of fun a schoolyard brute has at the expense of a child who
goes home bruised and weeping. It's time someone stood up for the past.
I have always hated bullies. The instinct to attack difference can be seen in every social
species, but if humans truly desire to rise above barbarism, then we must cease acting like beasts.
The human race may have been born in mud and ignorance, but we are blessed with minds
sufficiently powerful to shape our behavior. Personal choices form the lives of individuals; the
sum of all interactions determine the nature of societies.
At present, it is politically fashionable in America to