As author James Baldwin famously wrote, The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors.10 Baldwin explained that the white Americans who held these myths were “the slightly mad victims of their own brainwashing.” Fifty years on,
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