“Humans are not good people," Bill Maher once stated during a monologue, warning us not to make the mistake of judging historical events from the present standards of so-called acceptable forms of social behaviors. Called “presentism” it is the practice of looking back at what people did in the past with the view that only the present is real; that we should not apply today’s standards to events and historical figures from the distant past.

Rather, the question should be would you have behaved the same? That defense is used to explain that Thomas Jefferson was not “bad” or “evil” when he kept Sally Hemmings enslaved and impregnated, but only acting as a man of his time.

Another popular argument against using presentism is to explain the universality of slavery, which is still practiced in parts of the world. For example, there are folk who continue to use the Bible to justify the modern-day practice of slavery. Another argument supports the notion that from the beginning of time, anyone who could afford one, would have had a slave, including many Africans on the continent and even some Black folk in the western world. It gives a pass to the early settlers of America when writing about the country’s history.

Granted, the range of human behaviors, like maintaining the myriad systems of slavery, burning witches and other heretics, making human sacrifices to appease various gods, or other such acts are, in current times, deemed barbaric, inhumane, and/or unacceptable in civilized society. We do not do those things anymore, or do we?

One might agree that as a species, we have evolved into better habitants on the planet: we have adopted international regulations against genocide, rules for conducting war, policies, laws, and practices to govern ourselves as nations to keep us from annihilating every living creature on earth. Or so it is ideally planned and hoped for.

Religious wars, territorial land grabs and border conflicts, hatred of the “others” are still prevalent; seemingly unending. People insist on behaving badly. Some argue that it’s simply natural.

So, about presentism. How will this period of history be recorded, and who will be identified as the good guys?

Today, there is an uptick in feelings of goodwill after the tenuous ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was recently enacted in a “deal” for peace. Speculation is high about how long this peace will last since the fundamental dispute remains: Israel’s right to exist, unmolested, according to a brokered political agreement dating from the 1940s, which also established the right of the Palestinians to an independent state. On its face, it was a simple proposition offered at that time in history.

What has happened since the 1940s is the subject of many explanations recounted in numerous books, in multiple theories, after much bloodshed spilled on both sides of an intractable conflict driven by human frailties.

When complete histories are finally written, readers will be challenged to judge preceding events from a neutral perspective, not from whichever political lens prevails at the time of the writing. Yet, since history is constantly rewritten, there are no facts, just perspectives.

There are several questions fueling the current debate about how to teach American history. A few examples: should Christopher Columbus be credited with anything good? Were the founding fathers racist/sexist/classist? Is slavery America’s original sin? Does capitalism corrupt every foundational institution? Was manifest destiny ordained to eliminate the natives?

Here’s a more recent one for the application of presentism: how today’s culture war about the 2026 Super Bowl halftime “celebrity glitz” about Bad Bunny versus “American grit," Turning Point’s patriotic show, will be treated in the history books.

We have been daily witnesses to a playbook for bad human behavior. The nightly news depicts the elected leader of the USA devise new ways to exact pounds of flesh: implementing retribution politics against enemies, blowing up so-called foreign drug boats in international waters, authorizing mass deportations, ordering military occupations of our major cities, and cozying up with dictators and authoritarians, to name a few.

I wish I could be around for the publication of American history in 2125; that is, if there is still an America, or for that matter, any planet left.

What I’d like to read in that history book is how laws and governing standards were universally adopted and implemented that end poverty, famine, infectious diseases, religious and political warfare, racism, sexism and gender inequality, everywhere and for all times.

While presentism offers a very biased review of history, it can only conclude that we are not good humans, and that we do evil things, leaving me to wonder: if evolution continues, will we still be human? Are Black folk immune? Only our own written history will tell.