Gore Vidal was correct when he damningly observed that the American people do not have a memory of the last week. “We are the United States of Amnesia," the famed novelist concluded. "We learn nothing because we remember nothing.” Given America’s state of hyperpolitics, the black hole that is the attention economy spurned on the 24/7 news media, and a public that is not able to concentrate longer than a goldfish, Vidal now looks much too generous. 

This absence of memory is especially true for White America and its understanding, or lack thereof, of the realities of the color line and its impact on America’s past and present. The real and complex history of the United States, and how it was and continues to be shaped by racism and white supremacy is systemically whitewashed and distorted in the nation's schools and culture. This is a form of psychological and emotional abuse for Black and brown people whose history and life experiences are erased in service of protecting white privilege and the many lies that sustain it. 

Such acts of racial erasure eventually damage the minds, morals and ethics of white people — and in particular white children. As such it is a threat to American democracy. It is an attempt to deny the American people the lessons of the Black Freedom Struggle and Civil Rights Movement, two of the most successful pro-democracy movements in U.S. history. 

-Chauncey Devega in Salon.com