“Black Americans, on the other hand, find it almost impossible to think about ‘fairness’ or ‘justice’ in anything but racial terms — because of our nation’s historical record of unfairness and injustice to our race,” wrote Carson. “As I said in the previous chapter, no matter how often we are told we need to ‘get over’ the past, white people need to understand these things are not easy for us to forget.”

Carson noted white Americans view racial violence only in a modern context.

“White people think of racial violence in a modern context — such as the black riots that erupted in the wake of the Rodney King verdict,” he wrote. “They have no grasp on the history of racial violence in this country — as illustrated by their total unawareness of what Newsweek (Dec. 8, 1997) admitted were ‘two [facts] that every American should know. Between 1885 and 1900, at least 2,500 blacks were lynched or murdered as the KKK consolidated its hold on the post-Reconstruction South. In 1741, 14 slaves were burned at the stake and 18 others were hanged because of fears of a slave revolt— in New York City.’”