You can't always choose which. Sometimes you have to BE which.
Mistakes from our collective past are like any other: they require intervention--a remedy--to correct. They don't erase themselves over time.
You are not responsible for the past, but insofar as you do nothing, you are complicit in the present created by it.
If you see a group of people struggling over generations and you attribute those struggles to bad character, then you do not truly believe we are all created equally.