My Own White Guilt

[brtmchl]

Eva and Bill, Thank you. My feelings however were not true to the title. I really do not feel guilt, what happened in the past is simply in the past. Rather I was trying to point out that this was in MY past, but it is over now. Because the past is the past, I am not afraid to admit this fact from my ancestry. I will not worry what people may think of me, because this is not me. I am not a racist because my ancestors owned slaves nor do I automatically believe that THEY were. I do not feel as if my family owes something to make amends because my past ancesters did something that was protected by law in the early 19th century. I do not condone Slavery in any form, just as I know nobody here does. My 21 century morality doesn't understand the mentality of this era, but I will not cast judgement on those who lived then.
What I do not understand is Why? As Americans, this topic of guilt still plagues our political and social climate. Why is the discussion about Slavery still such a heated conversation? Why 150 years later, do we still get so emotionally connected, that discussions about Slavery always turns into a fight, usually ending with someone being called a rascist? Why do we paint historical figures with a black or white brush? ie. all Southerners are rascist because they owned slaves and only fought to keep Slavery intact. Why do we still see Southerners portrayed in Movies and TV as rascist? I remember a recent episode of SVU where a Paula Deen like character shoots a young black man( ala Trayvon Martin). Later in the episode while being fingerprinted she asks an officer, because of an accent, if she was from Georgia. The officer replies that she was and the Deen character says that they both know if they were "down home" she'd be getting a medal. There is also a scene where she refers to her kitchen crew as " field hands." Why do our politicians always revert to Slavery to stoke the fire of racism or for that matter Eva, Use Hitler and Fascism to subdue or destroy their competition? But the most disgusting is the BIG business that hate mongering and victim portrayal has created. From Politicians, hate groups such as the KKK and Black Panthers, and also community leaders portraying themselves as "Reverends" dedicated to justice and inequality, they seem to be doing just fine. It almost seems that we really do not want to heal even though we say we do.
I don't feel guilt. Maybe it's because I am not worried that someone will find out the dirty little secret in my families past. And while most don't feel guilt either, we are constantly reminded that we should.