You're Welcome

That's usually the response I provide when some one thanks me for doing something for them - whether it's standing off to the side of the road when I'm walking so that I stay more than 6 feet from the person approaching me (social distancing, you know), holding the door open for some one who's following me into a store, or when the sales clerks at Home Depot thanks me for my military service as I'm showing them my veterans card.  It's a common courtesy ... please, thank you, you're welcome.

The individuals who are currently in the process of destroying our cities - saying that the United States is an inherently racism nation because of our legacy of black slavery - don't appear to understand either common courtesies or their history.

Senator Tim Kaine (who I met years ago when he was Governor of Virginia) recently said that "The United States didn't inherit slavery from anybody. We created it."  (Link)  Senator Kaine was referring to the introduction of slavery into the North American British Colonies in 1619 in Virginia.  Senator Kaine is sadly mistaken.  Apparently he has never seen the movie "Spartacus" or, more recently, "Gladiator."  Slavery has existed in every society on the face of the planet at one time or another.  It still exists today.  The United States did not create it.

Black people who feel they are owed something from white people because their ancestors were slaves are also mistaken.

To start with, the black slaves brought to our shores from Africa were almost all enslaved by other black people - in Africa.  And while white people may have kept them enslaved, white people also fought a very bloody civil war to free them.  Nearly two million white people fought to free black people they had never met.  Hundreds of thousands of white people died in this effort.

Prior to my relocation to Virginia in 1988 and, subsequently, North Carolina in 2018, my family and my ancestors had all lived in the North - New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, & Connecticut.  My roots go back to the late 1600s on Long Island.  To the best of my knowledge, none of my ancestors owned slaves.  But they did fight to free them.

So when some black person whose ancestors were slaves say that I, as a white person, owe them something - my response on behalf of my ancestors is quite simple ... You're welcome.