That the Founding generation included moral hypocrites is hardly surprising. Every collection of human beings has included flawed people. Anyone scouring history books in search of moral perfection will be left disappointed.

It’s not clear that the moral hypocrisy of some of America’s founders delegitimizes the United States per se. At worst such hypocrisy makes the founding of the United States far from perfect. Even those who think that it’s a stretch to say that the United States was founded “on” racism can hardly deny that it was founded with racist institutions explicitly protected. The evils of slavery don’t in and of themselves negate the colonists’ complaints about a lack of representation in Parliament or the fact that British officials had subjected colonists to needless, intrusive searches and other abuses against their civil rights. But they shouldn’t be overlooked.

What is clear is that the United States has yet to fully come to terms with its history of racial violence and oppression. In large part this is because we’re accustomed to measuring our race relations progress through the lenses of military, political, and legislative victories.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in the wake of an illegitimate attempt at secession predicated on the preservation of slavery. The Civil War amendments to the Constitution certainly improved the document, but they hardly erased a culture of violence and racism that made them a necessity.

The North won the Civil War, the South won Reconstruction. The explicit exemption of blacks from civil rights and political participation in the South as well as the emergence of a racist domestic terrorist organization are all evidence that wars and Constitutional amendments hardly erase cultures that took centuries to develop. A century after Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, racists were murdering civil rights activists in the Jim Crow South. Thousands of black people had been lynched during those hundred years. Others were subjected to medical experiments. Segregation, bans on interracial marriage, and many other indignities were imposed by white‐​majority legislatures.

We can and should applaud the progress that the U.S. has made since its founding while accepting that there is much work to be done. Such work requires an honest look at history that treats the Founding Fathers and America’s founding documents as men and historical writings, not prophets and religious texts.

Although decades have passed since the civil rights movement American institutions continue to reflect America’s racist history. Law enforcement and criminal justice are perhaps the most prominent and obvious examples, but we shouldn’t ignore the impact racism has had on housing policy, education, and economic regulations. This history of course doesn’t imply that everyone who works in law enforcement, housing, and education or advocates for minimum wage increases is a racist, but it should be considered when discussing the ongoing impact of race relations on American society.

We should also consider modern moral hypocrisies and racial language. Today, many people who claim to support “liberty” protest the removal of statues of Confederate generals who fought to preserve slavery. More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, a city worker in New Orleans wore body armor and a face covering while removing a statue of Confederate leader Jefferson Davis.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), a member of the “Freedom Caucus,” won re‐​election despite saying that President Obama should be sent “back home to Kenya or wherever”(he has since disowned the comments). The whole Obama presidency is full of examples of thinly veiled racial language being used against the president and his family. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has used racist language and adorned his desk with a Confederate flag, which he displayed without any hint of irony alongside the American flag.

If initiatives like The 1619 Project can help Americans better understand their history and institutions then they should be applauded. I’ve yet to read the 1619 essay collection in full, and I’m sure that I’ll have some disagreements with some of its contributors. The essay on the link between slavery and the “brutality of American capitalism” looks ripe for educated criticism.

It’s important for an honest look at American institutions and history because the United States — unlike France and Greece — was founded on a set of principles. French and Greek identities have endured despite Greece and France being governed by a wide range of political regimes (republics, parliaments, monarchies, occupations, etc.). Yet there’s a sense in which American identity is tied to the political commitment outlined in the Declaration: a government tasked to securing rights endowed to all people.

I am bound to that commitment. I took an oath to the Constitution when I became and American citizen ten years ago. I did so gladly, knowing that the document and the men who ratified it were imperfect. But such imperfections didn’t dent my budding patriotism. Anyone with a family and friends knows that you can love something that isn’t perfect. My relationship with my country is like my relationship with anyone: it improves with increased honesty, reflection, and candor.