A SIZABLE SEGMENT of Americans are obsessed with our country’s past when they should be laser-focused on the future where we face growing, threatening challenges. Many are asking “Is pride in America a thing of the past?”

America’s past wasn’t perfect. We can’t, and shouldn’t, get tied up trying to change or prosecute events of the past. It was a different time in history and it can’t be judged or rewritten based on current standards.

The United States is a melting pot for people from all over the world. If we don’t tone down the divisive rhetoric and commit to a unified agenda, ethnic and racial divides will continue and ultimately, America will be torn apart from within.

There are no time machines that will take us back hundreds of years where we can change history. By these standards, future generations also will be obsessed with second-guessing everything about life today. As the world changes, today’s imperfections will be magnified when it comes to hindsight.

Future generations will look at what is happening now, and wonder how we could have been so foolish and blind to what they perceive to be obvious. We need to ask “What is most important?” and “What is being accomplished by ‘relitigating’ our nation’s history?”

In our remarkable history, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. Many things happened that cannot be undone and should no longer hinder charting the path forward.

Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley recently wrote “What’s the priority, teaching math and science or turning elementary schools into social justice boot camps?” Riley argued that critical race theory (CRT) will continue to divide the country, and putting the 1619 Project agenda into classrooms is a bad idea because it makes false and misleading claims.

America’s population growth has been driven by Asians and Hispanics. Does it make sense to teach young children to obsess over racial and ethnic differences? Minority students are more likely to be lagging academically. If you truly care about their future, teach them math and science. Do not instill in them feelings of social inequality.

The share of Americans who believe the CRT’s impact on our society is negative is twice as large as those with a positive assessment, 16% strongly support teaching CRT in public schools compared with 29% who strongly oppose it.

CRT proponents believe that racism is ordinary, the usual way that society does business. If racism is deeply embedded in thought processes and social structures at an early age, then only aggressive, color-conscious efforts to change the status quo can make a difference.

White privilege is defined as the unspoken, unseen advantages that whites enjoy. Changing laws without undoing the racial subordination inherent in white privilege will not get us very far. That would take a cultural revolution.

Another Journal columnist, William Galston, a liberal, recently wrote “If racism is pervasive, systemic and deeply ingrained, as CRT insists, then no white member of society seems quite so innocent because all whites benefit from a system of unearned advantage.”

Riley ended his column by writing “CRT contends racial inequality is the sole fault of whites and the sole responsibility of whites to solve through racial preferences for blacks. Ultimately, it’s about blaming your problems on other people, based on their race, which might be the last thing we should be teaching our children.”

We can’t change the past. We need to focus our complete attention on the future and make sure everyone has an equal opportunity for success. We need to decide which priorities make the most sense.