It does not mean that because blacks as well as whites were slaveholders that slavery is any less repugnant.
It does not mean that because blacks as well as whites were slaveholders that white slaveholders are posthumously exonerated.
But it also does not mean:
That descendents of African-Americans who were slaveholders are vicariously guilty.
That all African-Americans are vicariously guilty because some African-Americans, both male and female, were slaveholders.
That white celebrities who had slaveholding ancestors should be relieved of their shame-Ben Affleck will be pleased-because they had no cause for shame in the first place.
That all whites today are no longer vicariously guilty because some whites were slaveholders-they were never guilty, vicariously or otherwise, in the first place.
The significance of this article lies in the satiric observations of lentulusgracchus.
Yup.
It is generally believed that many of the slaves owned by free blacks were family members bought out of slavery.
They were often not freed simply because in the later decades of slavery it became more and more difficult to legally free slaves. Newly freed slaves often had to leave the state, for instance.
But there certainly were instances of free blacks buying and working slaves in exactly the same way white owners did.
Same is true of Indians, BTW.
Of course Afflack is a leftist so he has no sense of shame anyway.