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>sounds unreasonable. If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago, then so can the US forget about slavery.

Germany probably shouldn’t forget the genocide of millions of people from a variety of groups, just as the united states should not forget the systematic enslavement and repression of millions of people, who are also americans and their descendants are alive and numerous today. It doesn’t really make sense to me why people should forget that, and it cannot be forgotten by the people still living with the consequences of it today - but I’m not really willing to be baited into this type of discussion on a platform like this, so I’ll just say your fundamental premises in your post sound flawed if not extremely troubling in what you seem to be implying. It sounds completely unreasonable to say for instance, indigenous groups should forget they were pretty much wiped out by largely white colonizers. This isn’t a political statement, it’s just a matter of fact.

> they were pretty much wiped out by largely white colonizers. This isn’t a political statement, it’s just a matter of fact.

And if were to say "...but those colonizers are no longer alive, and neither are their children.", is that not also a fact?

Or is my wording a political statement but yours is not?

I don't know that we can be so uneven in our evaluation.

I think you are intentionally misreading this. My point is that we shouldn’t hold people responsible for actions they didn’t take. Sins of the father and all that.

Doesn’t mean we should forget them. But getting angry at someone now because of something that his great grandfather did to your great grandfather is a great way for these grudges to never die.

> My point is that we shouldn’t hold people responsible for actions they didn’t take

No one is holding people responsible for actions they didn't take. YOu're just mis-perceiving assistance given to historically oppressed people as a personal slight against yourself.

Helping a black person is not punishing a white person, and you're showing your own ass when you suggest it is.

Taking resources - tax dollars and opportunities usually granted on the basis of merit - from white person and redistributing them to black person on the basis of race absolutely does punish the white person. Talk of "historical oppression" is just a polemic to distract from this racist favoritism.