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I'm not saying that I condone slavery or that I'm happy about what happened. I think it was horrible and unjust and disgusting. Just as I think what was done to the Indians, to Jews, to supposed witches, and every other human being that has been persecuted by their fellow man for who they are is sickeningly barbaric and utterly ignorant.

Does that mean I think people should be able to get money for what long-since dead people did to their long-since dead ancestors?

Absolutely not.

Let's look at this in another light. You mean to tell me that you are so devastated by what happened to people, blood relatives or not, that you never knew and probably know nothing about, you think you should get money for what they suffered - from people that had nothing to do with what the caused pain?

So, by your reckoning, since I am a witch, I should be able to go and sue the residents of Salem, Massachusetts for burning my forbearer's? By your reasoning, since I am Cajun, I and my family should all be able to sue England for exiling my people from present-day Canada in the 1750's - tearing apart families and sending more than half, in their quest for new homes, to their deaths?

No.

Personally, I feel that people who want money for something that didn't happen to them don't honestly care about the rights of blacks, the horrible mark on humanity that was slavery, or the thousands that suffered during that time because of it. All these greedy individuals care about is MONEY. If they really cared about what happened, then they would actively be doing something to show it; perhaps by fighting for black rights or standing up for what they believed in. Suing someone does not make a statement for a cause; other than to show the cause is nothing more than making some greedy person rich. Their cause is self and self-gain. I am appalled to see people taking the pain and humiliation that so many suffered and trying to use it to further their bank account.

Almost everyone in America has ancestors that were persecuted. America was started by people escaping persecution; it is the melting pot it is today because so many peoples from so many lands have come here to escape that very thing. Who is to say one plight is worse than the next - that the horrors wrought on any of our ancestors were more than those around us? The fact is, it doesn't matter. No one has any right to any compensation for what others, long-since dead, have suffered. None. All of our ancestors, at one time or another, coming from more primitive and barbaric times, have suffered horrible atrocities. This is fact...and history. And it is nothing more than a tool to learn from, and a marker of how we have advanced.

No one owes today's blacks anything for what slaves - their ancestors - suffered. Indeed, modern-day, restitution-clamoring blacks make a mockery of their ancestors' true suffering with these ignorant claims. If those ancestors were alive today, I've no doubt they'd be ashamed; ashamed that their own blood were slaves still to a different master...slaves to the almighty dollar.

Learn more about this author, Shanna Riley.
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