Should We Make History Polite and Palatable?

Whitewashing history is a very dangerous game to play...

by Heather Blanton

Is it right to tell a story from the past but filter it through the sanitized, politically-correct lens of the twenty-first century? What do we lose if we follow that process? If we bury the sins and mistakes of the past, aren't we in danger of repeating them?

 Recently, I was doing some research and a friend gave me a couple of books on South Dakota history. They are all in the series Daughters of Dakota, edited by Sally Roesch Wagner. Each volume is a fascinating look at the life of lady pioneers--the gals who crossed the plains, stared Lakota Sioux right in the eye, lost husbands and children, survived fires and floods. You get the picture. The true Ladies in Defiance. But best of all, these books tell the stories in the women's own words. Each volume is a compilation of letters, diaries, and transcribed stories. First-hand accounts of pioneer life that give an amazing glimpse of life in South Dakota from the 1870s to the early 1900's.

There are several books in the collection. In Book 1, the editor goes to great pains to express that each story contains the actual words of the pioneer woman. Following the suggestion that "the English or grammar used is to be the writer's own for history is wanted [unvarnished] and not perfect manuscripts," editing was kept to a minimum. In fact, Wagner says, "The words have not been changed." 

South Dakota and her pioneers are all there in their ugliness—violence, racism, bigotry—and their beauty—generosity, kindness, self-sacrifice.

However, by book 6, Wagner has had a complete change of heart. She has decided she knows life in the nineteenth century better than the ones who actually lived then. "Today," she writes, "we know the disrespect and contempt contained in the word, 'squaw'; had these pioneer women known what we know, they would undoubtedly not have used the word."

Well, the poor, little, ignorant pioneers. If only they'd had someone like a college professor to enlighten them on diversity and social justice.  

To paint over this 19th-century mindset and not offend our modern one, Wagner continues, "In respect to them and their Native American friends, I have changed that word whenever it has appeared in the manuscript, along with the words, 'papoose' and 'buck.'"  

I don't know about you, but the woman's audacity almost leaves me speechless. But, wait. There's more. "'Colored' and 'Negro' are no longer considered correct usage; African American has replaced them in the women's stories." 

Don't get me wrong. I am certainly not defending the use of racial slurs. However, a hundred, a hundred-and-fifty years ago these words were common descriptors, sometimes used with malice, sometimes not. In my humble opinion, whitewashing history is a very dangerous game to play. If you don't present the past in its completeness, you get a skewed image that buries sins and hides mistakes. And that's not history at all. That's fiction.  

Do you agree with me or should we be making all history politically correct, polite, and palatable?