I have what some Southern sympathizers and Unreconstructed Confederate terrorists might consider a peculiar attitude toward our Civil War dead ~ namely that all honor and glory goes to the Union Army, and to all of our dead. Anything less than that is anti-American!
I don't think all honor goes to the Union Army. The Confederate Soldiers were also fighting for their country. They weren't all fighting to keep slaves. Most of them were poor boys who would never be slave owners. They were patriots, according to the standards of their community.
But the point here is that when some African Americans today demand "reparations", it's helpful to point out all the Union Soldiers who died to end slavery. In terms of the "reparations" argument, it doesn't add much to talk about the honor of the Confederate Soldiers who died, and who were honorable, but who don't add to the equation of "reparations".
The bottom line is, slavery was ended by the Brits and the Americans much earlier than it was ended in other countries. Slavery continues in Africa today. Leftists the world over ignore that continuing slavery, including Leftist One himself, Koffi (Show Me The Money) Annan.
One more point about "reparations": Many different immigrants came to the New World in a variety of different ways. However they got here, their decendents are better off today than had they never arrived on these shores. That includes African Americans.
Sad as it sounds (and it is sad), the only possible way for Africans to join the New World in the early centuries of the building of the Americas, was as slaves. Sad but true. Sad for the slaves. Not sad for the decendants, none of whom are yearning to return to the "homeland", which in many cases includes countries where slavery is actively practised today.
I think it was unAmerican to have my ancestors' city burned down and their property stolen and getting raped and murdered by Union Soldiers.
Well, You are WRONG. And I might add that many of the Union Soldiers who did the fighting, would disagree.
People like Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine, Or Ulysses Simpson Grant, or George Meade, just to name a few.
Your first mistake is believing the Civil War was about freeing slaves, it wasn't.
You are entitled to your opinion, though. Of course I think you're doing a pretty good job all by yourself of proving that opinions don't = intelligence.