If we are serious about a new way forward, we cannot hide from historical truth in America. That history is painful, but for whom? The telling of these truths is not nearly as painful for us as it was for Africans to endure such callous inhumanity. White people hide from the great force of history because it lays bare their complicity in making a nation and world that unfairly advantages them and is enforced by violence and mendacity. Black people hide from the great force of history because we do not want to make white people uncomfortable and many of us would rather luxuriate in the national rhetoric of freedom, justice and equality than to fight for the real thing.
