Claims of national innocence paved the way for continued black suffering

Evidence

On one level, America and the South are one and the same, both are haunted and vexed by the macabre reality of the dead, the suffering beneath the country’s and region’s feet, and by the lie of their innocent role in it all. That innocence allowed the bodies to continue to amass. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 448

Categorization

• DEFINE: Pairs ‘the lie’ with the after-times logic: innocence is the mechanism that lets the body count grow.