One thing bothers me about everyone’s assertions that they’re not connected with slavery. What about those who (at least by oral tradition) are? On my mother’s side of the family we’re supposedly related to Lincoln (I’m descended from Nancy Hanks’ brother), but the oral tradition of the family is that on my father’s side, the family owned slaves during the antebellum period. When the war started, supposedly, the family split, and ended the war impoverished. However, suppose I had inherited millions that were descended, indirectly, from slavery? Should I have to return the money, be vulnerable to a Johnny Cochran-style class action lawsuit where the black population of the country all get some meaningless coupon and the lawyers get all my money? I would like to think we could come up with a better solution than *that*.
Ancestral or racial guilt is, regardless of the circumstances, silly. One of the points of this country is that you’re not judged by who your parents were, but by who you are. I have two favorite lines on this, one from a movie and the other from a TV show. On the show Wiseguy, Vinnie (the main character) said to someone “It’s [life] not about *what* you are, it’s about who you are.” In the movie Gettysburg, the old Irish sergeant Kilrain says that here (in America) you’re judged by who you are, not who your family was. I agree with both sentiments. There’s nothing that says that a person can’t inherit millions of dollars and still be a decent and ethical human being, even if he lives well his whole life. If it does say that somewhere, the people like Will Smith and Denzel Washington had better impoverish their children. Either that, or this supposed guilt of the wealthy only applies to us evil whites.
