I don't ignore the past, but how necessary is it really to keep dredging up things like the Race Riot as if it just happened? To me that is the antithesis of healing and progressing. I feel fortunate to have grown up in a post CRA era where attitudes were changing towards other races. I believe that was important. However, to keep picking at scabs like the race riot, Tate Brady, etc. seems really counter-productive. As you said we are projecting it. I already know how bad and ignorant racial attitudes were 100 years ago, I don't need a daily refresher course to feel whole.
I agree - it is old history. And it sadly, is one of the things we are "known for".
About the CRA thing - yeah, you grew up after the act but that really only changed the law, not hearts and minds. We see this every day as recently as Charlottesville, and pretty much every day, in tweets from our 'Federal Housing Lawbreaker in Chief'. I believe we have a smaller "core" of those radical people than years ago, but that also means the bile becomes more concentrated and intense in that smaller group. People that may not have had the full dose of fanaticism have mellowed more and drifted away from the worst aspects. Still see plenty of Confederate flags around (even though we were neither Confed or Union). And the people who fly that flag still deny reality and try to pass it off as "history" with no basis in slavery. Showing they cannot even read English....and are too morally bankrupt and intellectually deficient to even try to learn the truth.
I have seen improvements over the years, with some very strange ebb and flow to the overall situation. NPR was talking about human 'progress' yesterday, and yeah, we are experiencing progress across most fronts. But for Oklahoma - when we have a legislature that keep on doing the stupid stuff they do, like passing laws over and over they know are illegal, damaging education, massive incarceration rates for trivial offenses. Well, the map that gets posted from time to time about 0 days without a National Embarrassment is absolutely spot on. Doesn't even take into account the racism and bigotry exhibited and reported on a national scale of legislators/Governors like Sally Kern and Frank Keating. Really, Frank - we oughta just kill teachers.?? These things stick in minds outside of the state and build the view that people have. How many years of nothing but sugar and spice and everything nice and unicorns do we have to project to get the backwards, hicks from the sticks images out of people's minds??
As an indicated of just how far we HAVE come - I worked with a guy for quite a while who was extremely 'pro-white'. He told me one time about a decade ago that he had mellowed a lot over the years. He literally said, "Well, I could deal with it if one of the grandkids wanted to date or even marry a Black guy. But they better not ever bring home a "Jew"...!!"
In reality, he would also have blown a gasket for any non-white person one had brought home...And yet, he claimed to be a devout Christian. What he really practiced was christianism. Not Christianity.