I don't think that ANYONE should forget about slavary and the civil war. Not just because of what happened, but because it's a part of most american's heritige (most meaning that not all americans have roots back that far). What happened is a terrible, enexcusable thing. I really don't know if my roots in america stem back that far or not. I have a LOT of respect for the many black women and men that survived that time period, moved on, and began a whole new life. It was hard, racism was beyond prevelant, and many of the people of that time died. NOBODY should forget about what happened, Black OR White. I also feel for the many Irish men that died at the hands of americans. Most americans don't realize that after the civil war, and slavary was abolished, irish men were HEAVILY discriminated against. They were treated like dogs. And most books will tell you that they were treated WORSE than the slaves. Racism is still prevelent to this day, unfortunatly. We see it everyday, affecting all peoples, not just black. Where does it stop? Instead of arguing about it, why don't we come up with some solutions as how we can change things. Someone asked what I was doing about, well tell me what you WANT me to do about it. How can I help? In an ideal world we will all live in peace, but this isn't an ideal world, we can only work to achieve perfection, and make our lives better, so tell me how we can help. The only way to solve these problems is to work together. We DO need to learn from the past, and I think that most of us have, but healing takes time, years, centuries. . . We have to live with the past, the burning times, slavary, the holicost (sp?), segrigation/racisim, discrimination, women's sufferage. We are all most likely linked to something in the past, and the only thing we can do besides argue about it, is come up with solutions.
[This message has been edited by mgdzkm433 (edited May 31, 2000).]
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