"It's only words..."

"But words are all they've got,
to take attention on the more important issues away..."

The NYT today opines that it was Rick Perry's family burden, not just to paint over the rock, but to destroy it totally, so no others would be offended.

However much paint was actually applied to Mr. Perry’s rock, it was not enough to wipe away the memory of a national shame.

That's the point.
Keep the shame.
But in perspective: there, in the past. Look, we've come a long way baby...

Plenty of ethnicities have faced their own tragedies. They don't continue blaming all others, and if they do, they are mocked. (Those Irish who still hold a bitter hatred for all people English, in this day and age in America? Why, they'd be missing out on some nice Canadian friends, say, if they lived in Florida... or they'd lose out today, to hold descendants responsible for the sins of the past.)

Did we tear up Twain's books, or put them off limits -- painted over, or *shudder* destroyed -- because they revealed something about the nation's collective past?

Then why do that with this simple rock? Why blame the Perry's for not being firebrands, and continuing to stay with the trends in the black community: first, Negro Rock, then, Black Rock, now: another paint job please Perry's: African American rock.

It's silly, and it's pandering.
The nation faces tough times for working people: black, white, Spanish, and all other minority immigrants. Trying to blame the sins of the past, on plenty of white-skinned folk who neither participated nor benefitted by the slavetrade, and who had their own "overcoming" to concentrate on...

I wonder if, instead of pointing darker fingers and elite white fingers at others, we could move past the "shaming" and try to build better tomorrows, while acknowledging the unvarnished past.

No -- that's obviously hoping for too much in these times and seasons.