Despite its blatant racism, ‘Nation’ still needs to be seen

The above is an article appearing in the Boston Globe today, about how some people don’t want the blatantly racist film The Birth of a Nation to be screened.

I’m constantly frustrated by people’s tendency to ignore ugly things. You can’t erase the fact that we used to treat people like scum. What good will it do to repress our history? We need to look it in the face and accept that it happened. It needs to be taught to our children. We need to learn as much as we can about it to insure that it will never happen again.

Some are afraid that showing this movie will result in hate crimes and more racism. But really, if we’ve done our job, everyone will see it as a warning: look at the depths to which humanity can fall. Look what we’re capable of.

Really, this is a censorship issue. There will always be people unwilling to look reality in the face, and I will never be one of them.