Replies

1. People who never owned slaves owe exactly nothing to people who never were slaves. Period.

2. Each human being of whatever skin color owes every other human being of whatever skin color some modest amount of respect (well, except for those who have displayed a lack respect for us, and who thus don’t deserve that respect). Whether or not people actually do that is up to each of them, individually - that should not, and probably cannot, be a matter of public policy.

3) As a Western society we owe every citizen and (legal) resident certain basic rights. We aren’t doing a perfect job of that, but we are certainly doing a much better job of it now than in the past. The fact that we have had a (half-) black President and that multiple millions of blacks are solidly in the middle and upper-middle classes is proof of that. Again, we can do better, but the law right now is pretty much colorblind, as it should be. However, “affirmative action” has been the law of the land since 1978 - and 42 years later this distinctly NON-colorblind law shows no sign of disappearing, despite the fact that the Supreme Court that made it the law of the land said that it should be a “temporary” measure. 42 years out of our 244 year history as a nation is just over 17% of the time that this nation has existed, more than 1 in 6 years - just how long is “temporary” supposed to be?

4) The surest way to prevent progress on improving the access of every person to the basic rights that we should all enjoy is to burn down cities, riot, assault random people and loot stores. Those are definitely attention-getters, but not in a positive way. Dr. Martin Luther King engaged in peaceful protests despite putting up with a lot more physical and emotional abuse than the current crop of rioting thugs, and by being peaceful he and his supporters were able to effect enormous and positive changes in this society. HE is more responsible for there having been even the possibility, let alone the reality, of a black person being elected as President than any other single person, and is similarly more responsible than anyone else for the rise of a sizable and growing black middle class. What did Malcolm X and the Black Panthers accomplish, besides venting a lot of rage, killing a bunch of people and destroying a lot of property? Nothing. Perhaps today’s aggrieved people ought to learn a lesson or two from that recent history - and there are plenty of people in their own communities who can recount those facts and tell all of the appropriate stories.

But I’ll reiterate #1 - people who didn’t own slaves owe nothing to those who never were slaves. PERIOD!!!