Civic constraints on memory make it nearly impossible for the suffering to be heard

Evidence

Our silence about the suffering throughout the country conspires with injustice. People who have suffered from past wrongdoings and present failings find it difficult, if not impossible, to call attention to their suffering when a precondition for American civic life is that only certain events can be recalled and must be recalled in certain ways. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 129