"The Recent Past Is Always More Controversial"

"I argue that anything with implications for the present is de-emphasized. For example, we can talk about slavery because it ended; it now has become an American success story because we voted it out and fought it out. What about racism, though? Racism was, of course, the ideological justification for slavery. Slavery and racism were tightly entwined, but while slavery ended in the 1860s, racism doesn't just end. We should discuss what caused racism to endure. If you can't use history to illuminate racism, what is history good for?"

Alia Wong at The Atlantic interviews James W. Loewen.