Quote Originally Posted by birdgirl73
But I'm curious what you'd have us do in this particular case. I'm not sure we can assuage our collective guilt (I'm being facetious here because most folks probably don't feel much, if any, collective guilt, which is part of your point.) for these other matters by making reparations for this matter of slavery.
Hey, birdgirl, good to see you again!

I think the question of accountability is the important point. It puts teeth against the strong tendency to chalk something up as history. I think Germany continues to hold itself accountable for the atrocities of WWII for that very reason; and we don't need to look any further than the last 15 years of history to see that humans are capable of repeating such horrors.

One of the problems with African American slavery is there's still fierce debate as to what ended it and why. I think the question of reparations is more important than the outcome (i.e., who's right in the merit or worth of the discussion). Because as it stands today, the only thing we can say is, "Sorry, we really fucked up. But hey, this is now and that was then."

How was the vacation?