but as im unsure about this keeni, i would like you to explain how the fact that your great great great grandparent(s) were slaves adversly affects your daily life in 21st century america.
Let me see...
When I think about my ancestry, it stops at America. Does that bother me? Yes. When I talk to my friends, they all say, I have ancestry in England, Ireland and Poland. They take trips to these places, they have the religion, language and history of their ancestors. Do I have that? No. It's kind of like being adopted. You don't know where you are, or where you are from. I love my life, and I love everything in it, but there is still that piece of me that is missing.
When I look in the mirror, I don't look like a typical African person. My grandmother was a black woman, born with blond hair and blue eyes, my mother, with red hair and brown eyes, and I with curly black hair and brown skin. It's strange, these three women, all from the same family, all different yet somehow "black". You don't know how much it irks me to think that my family is a product of rape and enslavement. I don't know, Jeisan, maybe you won't get it, and maybe you will.
During slavery, black men were sold away from families, and women were left to rear them. Slave women reared their daughters strong but didn't do the same with their sons because they knew that they would just be sold anyway, or killed if they got too bold. Now look at the state of black families today. That is STILL the same mentality that holds. It's strange...how people just think that psychological issues like this aren't generational, but they are.
When I lived in Europe, people knew about slavery and asked me about it.
Them:"SO do you know where in Africa you are from?"
Me: "No."
Them: "Cool"/"I think it is so interesting"
I wish there were more black people on this board to help me explain this, because I don't speak for all black people. However, I know there are many who feel the way that I do.
also i think people are just getting tired of one group or another dragging up these undead issues, which just won't die. i mean the US has apologized and i believe paid reparations for its involvment in slavery. its like every decade someone has to bring the whole situation up again. imagine if you apologized, tried to make things right and move on only to have your face repeatly rubbed in your past mistake, you apologize again try to make amends only to have the same scenario played out over and over again. after awhile youre gonna get fed up, it gets annoying and old.
The US has never paid reparations for slavery, and the US has never apologized for slavery. The UN will not consider slavery a violation of human rights, since at the time, it wasn't considered a violation, and most people scoff at the idea of reparations, monetary or not.
Don't I have a right to be upset? I'm sorry, but maybe you guys just wont get it, because I've tried to explain this to other non-black people and they didn't see the point. Should Jewish people whose great-grandparents and grandparents were in the Holocaust just stop caring? No, they shouldn't, and neither should I.
I don't know anyone on this board personally, but I just want to be frank and candid and explain to you guys how I feel about these issues, because it really irks me that everyone claims to be so liberal and open-minded, yet no one can sympathise with a bunch of people who just want what is right, or who have been wronged. I'm sitting here with my mouth open, just thinking about it.
It's unpleasant.