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Originally Posted by Lovetodream88  The problem is I never had slaves and had nothing to do with it so I should not have to pay for it. There is no one around and alive who was a slave so no one should be treated differently now because of it. |
I never had a slave either but I'll bet you and I both have ancestors that did and have still-living relatives that participated in a society of Jim Crow laws and attitudes in the 1950's onward. I have relatives that allowed blacks to have to pass up empty seats in a bus to walk to the back or take their little daughters to relieve themselves in a different restroom way to the back in a public building, then come back in a drink out of a separate water fountain with a big demeaning sign over it! I remember going on stores with Mother that had signs saying blacks were not allowed inside - just a few decades back. Many of us have families that put up with all that going on. I am aware of anti-black attitudes still rife in parts of the country and in some people's minds that still want to keep black people "in their place" and refuse to hire or even do business with them unless a big enough company the government makes them. I saw it in the medical field. Plenty wouldn't rent/lease to them to this very day if laws didn't make them. Many will never invite a black family to dinner or hang with them or date them. The attitudes of today's white society are still quite shocking at times. And though I didn't own a slave or refuse to hire a black person, I recognize that they cannot routinely get many decent jobs or have all that fair a treatment every day throughout our land and until the day that happens, it will only benefit our society to try to make their lot in life that we once trashed now better when we can for the hateful attitudes that did and still exist all over - just a small way to try to fix great wrongs until the day there really is full equality. It never hurts a people to try to make things right for something their own ancestors and recent relatives created/allowed and still exists in some people and places in some forms.