Does it make you mad when you are asked to own slavery and its aftermath?

This is not a question directed solely at Caucasian Americans, but to everyone in America, no matter their racial ID. I have visited the William Johnson House in Natchez presented by the National Park Service, and I am a person who knows I have black blood, but appear white. I have been convinced that people of color owned slaves. I have read, and re-read, Alan Huffman’s book, Mississippi in Africa, and I see that Black American former slaves, who journeyed back to Africa, replicated American society and economics at that time in history and did own slaves and recreated the society from which they came. They were Americans first, and Negroes second.

We have had for years, nationwide, upper middle class and even really wealthy blacks, and now we have this president, but I know that there are millions of blacks and whites, who are in social, moral, educational and economic despair and the many problems this creates seem insurmountable. This is so tough that some people of means have tried to wash their hands of the problem.

I took note that our black Attorney General Eric Holder declared that “We are a nation of cowards,” because we as individuals and in social conversations don’t want to admit and own the legacy of our collective problem that race and class is still a big problem in this country and we have failed as a whole people to rectify the situation of our poor. I wish he had said it my way. He enflamed me, along with many millions of other people in this country, because we feel defeated by the enormity of the problems that inflict the majority of families who still act like slaves, indentured servants and sharecroppers and those under the influences of Jim Crow. I wanted to get mad at him. And, I did. He said it badly, but the point he was trying to make is valid.

Until we unite as Americans and roll up our sleeves and take everyone into the tent, we can’t help those who suffer from something we don’t understand and don’t want to unravel. Jesus Christ told us long ago that we will be judged by how we help the least of these. We know well that we see the least of these in our midst every single day. We want to put the black part of this burden on black America because we know there are people of privilege among their ranks in recent years. We know there are poor white people, too. We feel guilty about all who suffer from lack of privilege who are of all ethnic backgrounds. It is time to open our arms and help people in need, no matter who they are, and own whatever collective policies helped put them there. We rebel when we are asked to own a system that gave us or our ancestors a step up, but if we are going to go forward we must acknowledge the past and pledge our allegiance to moving forward. By owning slavery and its aftermath and stating that we do, we can take a first step toward solving all of our country’s problems. After all, we’re all in this together.

Constance Holt lives in Fayette and has been a freelance writer since she left The Washington Post as a staff writer in 1974.