Do you feel bad about slavery or at least regret that it happened?

Question

im asking ppl of all ethnicities but particulary white americans since i can relate to american history the most. i have a lot of white friends and we were disussing this in class because its black history month. from the beginning i was curious as to what ppl would say because i go to a majority white (like 80%) school. most of the girls in school regret that it ever happened because even now we can see our history and its aftermath have left distinct lines between our races and cultures. a lot of them are ashamed of their white ancestry because of slavery and racism. i agree with that part but i dont think they should feel responsible. their ancestors are responsible NOT THEM. as for my self - being black of course i wish it had never happened. however had it not been my ancestors, would it have been me? and had the hateful whites not brought blacks to america via slavery would we have found a way to create the very flawed but great diverse america we have today?

i couldnt fit everything in here so if you want to share oposing viewpoints or hear more about y opinion message me!

I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING YOU ALL ARE SAYING..mostly anyway... i dont think whites today that are not racist should feel responsible but please show some compassion! the whole nonchalant "i didnt do it so **** it. why should i care?" attitude is out of pure ignorance. educate yourself to the terrible horrific consequences. anyway.. just know this.. relatively speaking 150 or some years ago IS NOT THAT LONG AGO. and while i dont hold the whites today responsible for my ancestors history.. SLAVERY IS STILL HAPPENING TODAY! and for any group of ppl with enslaved ancestors im sure i can speak for us all when i say IT WILL N E V E R BE FORGOTTEN.

Answer 1

its 2007; I dont see any slaves, nor do I know the whereabouts of any slaveholders. as for the "hateful whites" comment you should really brush up on your history. Africa, the first civilization, invented slavery. And unlike america, it is still practiced there today.

P.S. regarding the hateful email I just got from the asker- the asker, and frankly quite a few of the answerers, needs to take a f()cking history class and stop using this "issue" to justify hatred for white people. trust me; whitey is WAY TOO BUSY to hold you down in 2007

Answer 2

Slavery did so many things and caused so many changes in the world. We cannot comprehend how the world might be different if slavery had never happened. One thing is that you would probably not be American right now if you come from slave ancestry.

Yes, slavery is wrong. I am glad that I have not ancestors that participated in slavery. You are right, the responsibility of slavery lies squarely on those who held slaves and traded slaves.

I can't say how I would feel if I actually had ancestors that dealt in slavery but I think it is time for us as a nation to stop living in the past. Of course, we must learn history in hopes of learning from past mistakes, but we must ever look into the future to see how we can make things better for all. Dwelling on the past only fosters hate and resentment. Looking to the future gives us endless possibilities.

There are things in history that should never happen again. Slavery is one of them. The holocaust is another. And in fact wouldn't it be nice if we could get rid of war altogether.

To do that, we need to learn to live with each other in spite of our differences. We live in a world now where the term multi-culturalism has become a popular term. Some seem to think that means that the cultures of a few must be pushed on to everyone.

What I really think we need to do is allow for cultural differences and appreciate those differences but at the same time we need to find cultural similarities and grab hold of those and accentuate those as a society rather than dwelling on the differences.

Answer 3

You seem to really care about your roots. I suggest you go outside our country's depiction of this era in our history and look at the truth from the African historical records. I have read that many of the powerful tribes of this country played a vital role in this happening. It was not only the white men who made this terrible thing possible, the Zulu tribe provided the people for the traders, who were mostly Portuguese, French, and Spaniards. It was the people in this country that provided the need and market for slaves, it was many other countries that provided the slaves. African tribes being the beginning of the supply chain.

I do however, believe that the blacks would have made it to this country as immigrants eventually. After slavery was abolished, many blacks immigrated here. I believe that we as a nation should remember this period in our nation's history as a time of ignorance and bad behavior. Our forefathers were of a mindset different from most of today. You must realize though that prejudices have always been one of mankind's weaknesses. There has been, is now and will always be those that hate another for some reason other than a bad interaction. If they do not hate you for the color of your skin it would be your hair or eyes or height or weight or if you live on the east coast or west coast, north or south, American or Canadian or Mexican and on and on and on.

Answer 4

I feel bad it happened and HELL YEAH i regret that it happened. If there was slavery today like it was back then i would be fighting against it. I believe in equal rights for almost everyone, but I do not take any responsibilty nor do I feel bad about my ansestory because I had no control over them.

What gets to me about this issue and todays society are a few of the black kids today (14-25) who get mad at some caucasians and bring up slavery and how we (whites) enslaved them and I personally have had many people tell me im "BAD" because I am white and that I somehow contributed to that era and slavery but those kids have never known what slavery was like. No one but the acctuall slaves themselves have. I feel some people are milking and diluting what slavery really was. Slavery was a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE thing and people now make a mockery out of it. I believe that that is totally wrong.

Answer 5

I do feel bad that slavery happened - and I regret that it happened. However - I do not feel guilty and/or ashamed. Those emotions (guilty and ashamed) need to be rooted to something I did. I did nothing in regard to the blacks becoming slaves.

There is no sense in dwelling on the past. We all know that there are still a lot of African Americans trying to "catch up" in society because their ancestors were held as slaves in this country. All we can do now is know that slavery was a horrible thing, and move forward with compassion and love.

Answer 6

You make very good points. I am white, and of course I'm sorry slavery took place and I feel bad about it. Being a 3rd, 4th generation American on both my mother & father sides though, my ancestors didn't ever own slaves. Slavery was a terrible thing, but like you said, many people might not exist if it wasn't for it happening because their ancestors would not have been brought here. And there probably would be less black people in America, which I don't think would be a good thing.

Answer 7

Slavery has existed in all parts of the world and the slave trade was not just a matter of whites buyinng blacks as slaves. Blacks were selling other blacks as slaves along with other groups. .
As for feeling bad about it or regretting that it happened , that doesn't change anything . Those of us that are posting here have neither owned slaves or been a slave , so any regrets or resentments about slavery are not important. What matters is where we go from here . Racism is just as apalling no matter who is doing it . ( Being a racist is not confined to any one group....it exists among every ehtnic group). And I think we would have still found the means to create the diverse america that exists today.
And for background, I am the direct descendant of a white Mississippi share cropper .

Answer 8

This subject has become such a political talking point instead of just being part of history. There comes a point in time when its o.k. to accept that which has happened and get on with life...
As has been mentioned in other posts, blacks started slavery themselves, whites took advantage of it and eventually stopped it. It happened so long ago, i find it hard to believe that anyone today should feel any responsibility.

BTW, since when did white ancestry become the root of racism?
Unless I am crazy, I have met more than my share of racist black people. ( I live in the south where there is a fairly dominant black population)

Answer 9

I think that it's a completely different thing to feel bad about slavery and to regret that it happened. Of course we should feel bad about it...they were terrible times that should never have happened. The point is, though, they did! And rather than regret it, we should learn from our mistakes and never let it happen again. There's no point in regretting things; we should just feel blessed that we now have the knowledge never to allow anything so dispicable to occur again.
As for feeling guilty or taking responsibility for it; we should empathise with the slaves but we shouldn't feel guilty per se. We should be educated about the appaling era in history and we should take the responsibility of preventing anything similar happening again.
Overall, this era should be used as a learning experience: then at least the maltreatment and horrific abuse of the slaves will not have been altogether in vain.

Answer 10

I*'m a history buff and read a lot of history novels. Many of them cover this period and how different people treated the slaves differently. When reading about this, I often think what I would have done during this time. It is a hard issue to deal with and yes I feel bad for thoses who lived through it. But we all must move on and realize this was about 150 years ago.

Answer 11

Of course I feel bad that it happened. Guilty? NO. I have extensively researched my ancestry, and not only did none of my ancestors own slaves, but they were almost all heavily involved in the abolitionist movement (including my great great great grandfather, Rev. Stephen Paddock, who was an "engineer" in the underground railroad). Not all white people here at that time had slaves, or were for it.
Not to mention the fact that I can't control and don't feel guilty about things I object to that even living relatives do - it's not me and not somthing I myself did.

My biggest problem at this time is that slavery still exists all over the world, even here in America (especially Chinese, former Russian states, and eastern European immigrants who are brought here - legally and illegally by crime groups -turned into sex slaves (forced prostitution) and domestic household workers here in the USA as we speak), and the masses don't even talk about or strongly fight against it yet again...