To say that the events of this past week isn’t “who we are” as a people and country is as much wrong as it is right. To think otherwise is possible only if we sanitize our past, only if our country’s dark and ugly side is scrubbed out. Simplifying our past is historically mistaken and political disarming at a moment when we must look at our past and present squarely and many sidely. Illusions and feel good stories of our country’s past and present aren’t our allies as we try to construct a more just society in the present.