In Silencing the Past, Michel-Rolph Trouillot introduces what he calls “the unthinkable”—a world-historical occurrence that is not recognized or acknowledged as such because those witnessing it do not have (or refuse to entertain) the conceptual framework to make sense of it.  In the passage from Trouillot I quoted in an earlier essay, he argues that the Haitian Revolution as the act of enslaved Black men and women making a bid for full freedom and political self-determination was “unthinkable” to even the most radical factions in revolutionary France because they could not envision a Black people as having the capacity for Read more