Comfort is powerful. It makes distance feel like closure.
Comfort is powerful. It makes distance feel like closure. But history is not as far away as we like to believe. The violence of slavery was not just physical—it was systematic. Bodies restrained. Identities erased. Generations reduced to property. The chains were not only metal; they were economic, cultural, and psychological systems designed to last long after the visible brutality ended. And in many ways, they did. The wealth extracted from enslaved Africans helped build global economies. The inequalities that followed were not accidental—they were structured. From plantations to modern labor systems, the echoes remain in who owns, who works, and who benefits. This is why memory matters. Not to trap people in the past, but to understand the present with clarity. Because forgetting is convenient—for those who inherited advantage. Remembering is uncomfortable—for those forced to confront how that advantage was built. Across Africa and the diaspora, the question is not whether the past ...