Billy Collins May Know We've Forgotten Langston Hughes' History

Most people, I think, want to forget bad news. Especially when whatever tragedy that happened was the fault of him or her. Historically, the same is true. History is taught with a bias, and up until the last few decades, literary anthologies largely left out the people marginalized by American history. I have found two poems, one older and one newer, that speak to this.
In "Dinner Guest: Me", Langston Hughes laments the false humility of many white people as they "Murmur[] gently/ Over fraises bu bois,/ 'I am so ashamed of being white'." Although the white people say things like this, Hughes knows that they see him as "The Negro Problem". A "problem" emerging out of a history of slavery, lynching, and marginalization at the hands of white oppressors, no doubt. Billy Collins has an entertaining poem about twisted history titled "The History Teacher". This is one stanza from the poem:

                                         Trying to protect his students' innocence

                                         he told them the Ice Age was really just 

                                         the Chilly Age, a period of a million years 

                                         when everyone had to wear sweaters.

Although Collins' poem is much less disturbing than Hughes', I think they make a similar point. 

Hughes is observing that the people responsible for his people's history is attempting to appear innocent, and Collins is showing that we often retell history in a softer version. At the heart of the conversation about race in America lies a retelling of history. Whatever retelling of history we decide to believe will fundamentally alter the way we as people view reality and will also alter what we fundamentally believe. After that, the only choice is either to accept history and act appropriately or to ignore it and its victims and suppress them as "problems."