There is a narrative about America’s racial history that we have not acknowledged, that we have not confronted. We have been burdened by continuing problems with race relations and racial equality because we have not understood the narratives in the way that I think we should. It actually begins with slavery; I think even the way we talk about slavery has been superficial. I don’t think the evil of slavery was involuntary servitude. To me the great evil of slavery was this narrative of racial difference, this ideology of white supremacy, that black people weren’t fully human, that they had deficits and deficiencies that meant that it was okay, that it was moral and just, to enslave them.