James Baldwin on why we must face our past

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin^[2][3][5]

To accept one’s past—one’s history—is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it.
James Baldwin^[3][5]

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
James Baldwin^[2][3][5]

We know, in the case of the person, that whoever cannot tell himself the truth about his past is trapped in it.
James Baldwin^[1]

Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity.
James Baldwin^[3]