Ta-Nehisi Coates:

So, a lot of this is about how African-Americans remember their own history.

They are — and I think this is no longer true, but, certainly, let's say, two or three generations before me, there certainly was a prevailing notion that we didn't talk about enslavement. We just didn't mention it. You just move on. You don't repeat the traumas.

But one of the implicit ideas, I think, in this is that you can't actually move. There's so much that you can't do when you're so intent on forgetting. And there's so much more you can do if you actually grab it by the reins, you know, grab memories by the reins and say, look, this actually — this happened.