A German friend wrote me about how much shame he was feeling belonging to a nation that had been so inhumane during the Holocaust. Here is what I wrote him.

Shouldn’t I be feeling the same shame about U.S. slavery? After all, tens of thousands of Africans were kidnapped, forced on ships, starved and chained. If they survived, they were sold itot slavery, often of a horrific kind. They were, beaten, whipped, forced to wear hideous torture devices (masks that held their mouths closed except for eating, etc.) They were confined in small cabins, beaten and forced to labor hard all week. The women were raped and if they bore children, these children were often sold away from them. Husbands and wives were separated and often sold to different plantations.Nor did this end when slavery was abolished.As soon as they could, white Southerners reimposed horrific conditions, the so-called Jim Crow laws of the 1890s. These mandated segregation, forbade blacks to vote,, kept them in menial jobs, etc., etc. And they were reinforced by lynchings — public ceremonies where black men were strung up, castrated and left to die. Lynchings were commemorated by potscards sent all over the United States. Nor has this ended today. Blacks are dying in far greater numbers than their percentage of the population from the coronavirus.

So what do I think should be done? I think that we much acknowledge the evils of the past, but focus on the present. We should prize equity and strive to make this world a better place.