I want to say something because I think this keeps getting misunderstood, and I don’t believe most people are trying to be hateful when they say these things.
No one alive today owned slaves. No one alive today was a slave in America. Slavery was wrong, and I’m glad it ended. Civil rights being passed before some of us were even born is also true. And I do not believe people today should be blamed for things they personally did not do.

History is not only about who committed the act. It is also about who was allowed to benefit after it ended.

If your family came here after the Civil War, then no, your ancestors did not own slaves. That matters. But after slavery ended, Black Americans were still blocked from the same opportunities that others were allowed to have. That is not opinion, that is history.

Reconstruction failed. Jim Crow laws existed. Schools were segregated. Neighborhoods were redlined. Jobs were restricted. Loans were denied. Patents were stolen or denied. Property ownership was limited. Those systems did not require someone to be a slave owner to benefit from them. They just required someone not to be Black in that time period.

And this part matters too. Benefiting from a system does not automatically make someone racist. You are not automatically racist because you benefited from past atrocities. You are not guilty because of your skin color. You are not responsible for what your ancestors did or didn’t do.
What people are trying to explain is not guilt. It is impact.

So when Black Americans talk about slavery and civil rights, it is not about saying “you did this.” It is about saying “this shaped what came after.”

Now let me say something that also needs to be said. Black America is not innocent in everything either. There is no excuse for a woe is me mindset. At some point, you have to own your choices, your culture, your priorities, and your direction.

History can explain things, but it cannot be used as a permanent crutch. We do not move forward by staying stuck in what was done to us. We move forward by deciding what we will do with what we were given.

I believe both of these things at the same time. The past had an impact. And we still have responsibility today.

I don’t see most people as enemies. I see people tired of being accused of things they didn’t do. And I see people tired of having history minimized.

Those two frustrations do not have to fight each other. They can exist in the same conversation.