Active forgetting of the past shapes and distorts present identity

Evidence

When we disremember an event, an egregious moment in the past, we shape how we live in the present. I borrow the word from Toni Morrison. In her magisterial novel Beloved, she grapples with the difficulty of memories, haunting memories that come back to consume. Disremembering enables the characters in the novel to ward off, temporarily, the pain of past events. Disremembering blots out horrible loss, but it also distorts who the characters take themselves to be. Something is lost. It is this sense of the word that strikes me as particularly useful for our current moment. Disremembering is active forgetting. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 123

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘disremembering’ (borrowed from Beloved) as active, present-shaping forgetting — a core mechanism behind the value gap that the reader needs.