"Maybe my wife is right. Alexandria might be a Washington suburb now. And that leaves me hopeful. Yet my white southern roots know that beneath the veneer of civility lurks a dark past of slavery, segregation, and white supremacy. Maybe we are both right. Alexandria is both southern and not so southern, trying to shed its glorification of the Confederate cause incrementally. I understand. We find it hard to confront our past because it's so ugly, but the alternative to ignoring our racist history is creating a racist future."