>Well, as a descendant of some of the few slaveholders in colonial
>Maine, I am prepared to take a measure of historical responsibility
>for slavery, but I'm unwilling to say that I am part of a
>slavery-creating "we." It's a "they"--definitely a "they"...
As Americans, we're all heirs of slavery - it shaped the physical and social environment from the first, and many of the issues around race we live with today are its sequelae. And how about British industry, which thrived on slave-picked cotton? Britain's wealth and empire were built in part on slavery. It's one of the great crimes that many modern fortunes are founded on.
Doug