Connor Towne O'Neill

“The monument immortalizes; the memorial mourns. ... Memorials, in other words, want to hold us to account.”
― Connor Towne O'Neill, Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy

“This is what ideology does. We don’t adapt our view based on the facts at hand,  we assemble facts based on our ideology.  We remember what we like. And white Americans are well practiced in this magical thinking, this selective memory. American exceptionalism dictates that we are entitled to a good history as our birthright. Received wisdom that, in the defense of our good name, encourages white Americans to be less than critical about our past.”
― Connor Towne O'Neill, Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy