Commentary: Slavery needs more than an apology - CNN.com
This commentary is written by a descendant of a family that profitted from the slave trade. Her family, arguably one of the largest Northern slave traders, conducted their business from....Rhode Island, which, when I last checked, was not in the south.
Greg, This endless demand for some type of admission of guilt from whites (mostly European Americans) is more a "cause" of racial animosity than a "cure" for it.
ReplyDeleteFor example, my maternal grandparents came over to America as penniless immigrants around the time of the first World War. They lived with other relatives on the East-side of Detroit in the "Belgian" area. They were referred to as Buffaloes because so many of the Belgian immigrants passing through Ellis Island in the early 20th century were bound for Buffalo N.Y.
My paternal grandparents were poor also, and that side of the family had only emmigrated from Germany a few years earlier than than my mother's family. My point being, we were immigrants, we were poor and we faced obstacles like not even speaking English, just like most ethnic groups who emmigrated to this country. But we didn't keep bemoaning the fact that we were poor and faced discrimination from established ethnic groups. We copied the traits that allowed the other ethnic groups to succeed; work ethic, family values, saving, etc. Why do many African Americans instead insist on trying to make people like me feel "guilty" about past racial discrimination in America ?
The decades of blacks telling everyone else that society "owes them something" causes the rest of society to view blacks differently than other racial or ethnic groups. I've often said that if blacks would simply "assimilate and participate" rather than "blame and recriminate", they would be treated no differently than any other racial or ethnic group, but unfortunately most blacks continue to want to blame European-Americans for their problems, rather than just following the path that so many other ethnic groups took to a successful place in America; Hard work, Family values, saving for future generations and assimilating into society, rather than rebelling against it.
Honestly, I think that the single biggest obstacle facing black in American today is not "racism", it is illegitimacy and single-parenthood. A single parent family is the surest route to poverty in America, period. It is a "cultural" problem that MUST be changed for blacks to improve their situation in society, and whites have no control over it.
I agree with Brian. I would also like to hear your views on Brians blog.
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