Why are some people so hung up on slavery?

I agree, the Natives should be more pissed than anyone else, but you still can't deny how horrible slavery was.

Crazy Europeans.

You are forgetting not only the extend of slavery--almost 200 years in America (US) alone, but also nearly 100 years of harassment by KKK and others (about 3000 black men were lynched in the South AFTER 1900), Jim Crow laws stemming from "separate but equal" Plessy v. Ferguson. While Bill Cosby is right in that blacks can do more for themselves, there is an undeniable history that has never been fully worked out in our society.

Blacks were forcibly removed from their countries, half died on the trip to the New World (the US has a fairly small proportion of slave trade), families were torn apart and not allowed to start in the first place, rape by whites was very common, and many efforts to improve themselves post-Reconstruction were thwarted.

While the decimation of Native Americans is also horrendous, many of the deaths occured from illness. Families were not torn apart as with slavery, although many children died especially on forced marches like the Trail of Tears. The lack of social cohesion took awhile in the NA population, whereas in black populations it was immediate and irreversible.

BTW I'm white.

Its something not to forget but some take it too deep and make it effect their daily life which is pointless. But me Im black none of my ancestors were slaves so Im not involved but the Europeans did mess up my families country here I am in the UK taking advantage of all my opportunities which is the best way to feel good about what this country had done to my fore parents

Because so many people were hung up in the name of slavery.

or how about the deplorable treatment of the chinese in america during the late 19th century? all of history is made up of one race standing on the backs of beaten or fallen others. but what we all should remember is that is HISTORY. in the past! leave it there! white people are guilty of it too. especially white america. we have the guilt left over from all the horrible things our ancestors did to other people in the name of advancement. everybody should just let go and live in the now. i should also win 700 million trillion dollars right now but i don't forsee that happening.

Native Americans are hung up on what white people did to them. Jews are hung up on the Holocaust. I'm frankly suprised that Chinese and Japanese Americans aren't more upset about what white Californians did to them. The Irish still bear the scars of British occupation.

History is full of horrible crimes, accidents, and atrocities. We could all learn something from them; to forget them is to murder those millions once more. The real question is this: Why must someone be our ancestor for us to mourn their death, their life, the injustice of their day against them?

Very few people actually committed murder, racism, slave ownership, or genocide. The vast majority of citizens during Aparthied, slavery, the wars against the Indians, and the Occupation of Ireland, were guilty of only one crime; that of not getting "hung up" on what happened around them.

If we forget about that majority, then we will cease to look for them in ourselves, cease to search for injustice alive today. Injustice lives. Shouldn't Memory persist as well?

I will not disagree with this question expercially with Africans.

Some people are so hung up on slavery because their are not developed with certain basic things in their country.

Things like funds - food, education , infrastruacture.

Most of the blacks who are "hung up" on the past are low income. They use that as an excuse for taking public assistance and committing crimes. They are "owed" because of their ancestors.

Successful blacks don't buy that excuse. They take every opportunity they get to improve their education and their careers.

You find the same mentality among other low income groups world-wide. They are all victims of the current government and their policies.

some people want life handed to them on a golden platter....

I've meet black people who were hung up on what had happened to their "ancestors" only to find out their ancestors were not slaves...they just wanted a hand out or something to complain about

I've meet people that want a hand out (life on a golden plater...have to have everything) from all races and walks of life.

As a rule they also point out what the white race did to Native Americans. Once they get on the "what the white man" did thing, they keep going with everything.

But in fairness, there is a reason for that. In essence, black people have not really been given equality by white people. Kind of, they have. But not really.

White people gave them equality in the sense that they said black people were fully capable of making it in white culture. But they continue to insist that white culture is the best ever; and the only equality they gave is that black people can make it in white culture.

White people continue to berate black culture as somehow lesser than white culture. Black music, black food, etc. are all attacked. White people find the worst of black culture and show that as the whole of black culture, and then compare it to the best of white culture and then ask why any black person would want to be part of that culture.

They say white people gave you culture, and you insist on sticking with your own culture; why would you hold yourselves down like that. In essence, that is still holding black people down as they did before, just in a less obvious way. And for the record, white people do it to every other race as well. They accept that anyone can make it in their culture, but insist that they should be working only to be part of white culture because white culture is better than all other culture.

Obviously there are going to be black people who don't like this. Then white people point out those black people like Colin Powell, Bill Cosby, etc. who made it in white culture. Now they should be promoted, they did very well and succeeded. But white people put them up as rebukes of those black people who prefer black culture. Black people who prefer black culture have to respond as it is an attack on their culture; which is why the "Uncle Tom" attack comes out. It is unfair to those like Cosby and Powell and similar individuals, but what else can they do to respond to the attack?

Then we get to the point of history. White culture is impressive. But we seem to forget that many black people (besides Martin Luther King, Jr.) also contributed to America and its greatness. All we learn in history is what the white people did to advance America. Almost no other culture is mentioned besides when they were pushed out or enslaved. That is knocked down as bad, and as it should be; but no one points out what other races did to help advance America. You cannot expect them to be proud of a country they really didn't feel their race had a hand in advancing; or that those advances by their own race will be ignored. Do you like rap? Even though it was originally designed by white people in Britain?

Probably not, because most white people don't know what their race had to do with rap. There are other examples, but rap is known as almost entirely a black thing. So pretty much only black people identify with it. It works the same way in the opposite direction; if you want them to identify with America they must see how they relate to America.

If and when white people begin to show that they appreciate black culture as well as other cultures, as well as see the effects that other cultures had on their own; you will find that more and more people of other cultures see themselves as part of the melting pot of America and not just living here with their own culture.