“National unity” has depended on a national narrative and political reality that downplays and erases genocide and slavery to play up an “idea” only made possible through the subjugation of millions. The belief that there was ever a single national narrative is naive.
A narrative built around unity would say the Constitution was anti- slavery. An accurate but more divisive history would say it was pro-slavery. One is propaganda, one is history.
So, the history of Native and black people is erased, marginalized, avoided because our stories our most inconvenient to this “idea” of America. The reality is way, way uglier, but just as much a part of the American story, if not more.
