Gore Vidal was correct when he observed that the American people do not have a memory of the last week. “We are the United States of Amnesia," the famed novelist concluded. "We learn nothing because we remember nothing.” Given America’s state of hyperpolitics, the black hole that is the attention economy spurned on the 24/7 news media, and a public that is not able to concentrate longer than a goldfish, Vidal now looks much too generous.
This absence of memory is especially true for white America and its understanding, or lack thereof, of the realities of the color line and its impact on America’s past and present. The real and complex history of the United States, and how it was and continues to be shaped by racism and white supremacy, is systemically whitewashed and distorted in the nation's schools and culture. This is a form of psychological and emotional abuse for Black and brown people whose history and life experiences are erased in service of protecting white privilege and the many lies that sustain it.
