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One of the things that really bothers me is that Americans don't have any sense of history. The majority of Americans don't have any idea of where we've come from, so they naturally succumb to the kind of cliche version that Ronald Reagan represented.

Americans think that they have a history, but it's nothing compared to Europe.

No man surely has so short a memory as the American.

We don't have any bad memories of the people of the United States.

It is only education and understanding of the past that teaches us not to repeat history.

It is true that as people, we tend to remember only the positive. With time, the grim details fade away, and as a species we survive on this notion. In our desire to gloss over the undeniable macabre parts of our American history, we forget. That amnesia manifests itself, especially when dealing with the plight of black men.

America has become amnesiac, a country in which forms of historical, political, and moral forgetting are not only willfully practiced but celebrated.

There's a preoccupation with memory and the operation of memory and a rather rapacious interest in history.

By looking into more details of American history, we can make more sense of what's happening today.