I live in the South so that maybe helps me better understand the level of tolerance for shameful history. Actually I don't understand it but I have to put up with it a lot.

I cornered a girl once after she defended confederate statues and reacted pretty stupidly to a movie with a theme of racism as if the recognition of a problem makes it worse. She did these two things independently in about an hour so I just tried to make a point I usually avoid and make it very simply. I asked her if a German statue in honor of Nazi soldiers is appropriate in Germany since it's "part of history" I wish I could explain well her reply because it was absurdly nonsensical and at one point she mentioned North Korea in an attempt to deal with unexpected cognitive dissonance.

And I still just had to end the discussion myself. I was pretty proud of the question to begin with because I thought it explained the situation pretty obviously without stepping on the toes of the confederate war dead which is not tolerated well here. I just gave up and told her history is understood differently in Europe and let her continue to think the war wasn't about slavery or whatever southerners believe.

But I think that was the night my counselor told me I come off as a douche bag but I'm really not. And I think she said that after hearing a few different things I said that night about race or sexuality. And she's black. That's important to point out sometimes and that importance was a thing I tried to very carefully explain to a moron during group therapy