Reply to Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science (MS)²

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Nobody alive today perpetrated the exploitation of slavery on blacks, or has any responsibility for it.  And, ALL Americans today are the ones living the legacy of it - to include the supposed "benefit.[/quote]

If you benefit from it, as the entire country does, you share responsibility for it. You just don't want to share the benefit and lessen it for yourself and your future generations. And many alive today perpetrated and in some ways still perpetrate the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws -- it's watered down, yes, but it still exists.

[/quote]

I'm really curious (seriously not trying to be argumentative) - what benefits do I, a white man born in 1972, derive from the history of slavery in the US?  [/quote]It's only been in recent decades that US policy has changed so that discrimination based on race has been discouraged. So compared to an African-American family, your family has been better placed to earn greater income as well as accumulate more wealth and have educational advantages. You may not feel an impact in your daily life but you may have grown up with more advantages than someone your age who is African-American.

For example, my white grandparents were wealthy, which they earned through their respective businesses.  Their kids, my parents, went to private schools and attended exclusive colleges and inherited their parents' money.  But if my grandparents had been black, they would never have had the opportunities to amass that kind of wealth or send their kids to those kinds of schools. I've worked hard my whole life but I got a great start because my white grandparents were free to build a strong foundation for those who followed them.  I benefited from them being white.  That kind of opportunity was never available to African-Americans of their generation.

I don't feel guilty about it because it is what it is. But I don't delude myself about the advantages I got from being a white person. An interesting book on this is Black Wealth White Wealth by Oliver and Shapiro:

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Wealth-White-Perspective-Inequality/dp/0415951666/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340650408&sr=8-1&keywords=black+wealth+white+wealth
[/quote]

Thank you.  I'm not sure I buy all that (it's a very broad brush with which to paint an entire race, many of whon did not go to private achool or come from wealthy families), but taking it at face value, the PP before me suggests that white people "just don't want to share the benefit and lessen it for yourself and your future generations" - what should be done about it?  What should I share?  [/quote]

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