A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world. That means trying to understand, take in, connect with, what wickedness human beings a… - Susan Sontag

To have a museum chronicling the great crime that was African slavery in the United States of America would be to acknowledge that the evil was here. Americans prefer to picture the evil that was there, and from which the United States-a unique nation, one without any certifiably wicked leaders throughout its entire history-is exempt. That this country, like every other country, has its tragic past does not sit well with the founding, and still all-powerful belief in American exceptionalism.

Who would we be if we could not sympathize with those who are not us or ours? Who would we be if we could not forget ourselves, at least some of the time? Who would we be if we could not learn? Forgive? Become something other than we are?

In fact, words do speak louder than pictures. Captions do tend to override the evidence of our eyes; but no caption can permanently restrict or secure a picture’s meaning.