America’s national identity rests on a protective historical self-story.

Evidence

I have said that America is an identity that white people will protect at any cost, and our history—our founding documents, our national heroes, our actions that cast us as a moral force in the world—is the supporting argument that underpins that identity. This history is inseparable from the landscape and built environment of the country; in many ways both, from the monuments to the way communities are spatially organized, reinforce that story subtly and overtly. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 250

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s task of explaining ‘the lie’ — the foundational self-narrative that late Baldwin and Glaude argue America defends at any cost. — connects to: National identity is built on manufactured ancestral myth, not primordial history. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 74