Constantly, I hear supposed enlightenment rhetoric from Conservatives struggling ...perhaps to make amends, perhaps trying to actually bridge the race gap in this country. However, it is hard to relate with someone until you have walked in his shoes, gone through what he/she has gone through, or even ... well, just start by living in his neighborhood. So many white people attempt, failing badly in most cases, to relate to the plight of African Americans but cannot possibly share their outlook. Medved makes some offensive remarks that seem outlandishly insensitive in this article because he seems so focused on making America the Beautiful Nation who may or may not have done some wrongs in the past. It's as though he is saying...well, our forefathers did some bad things...but look at slavery everywhere else. It was worse. It doesn't mean that we are at our destination Michael. There is always room for progress, reform, and well... loving our fellow man. We are to truly love one another. Paul said that he must become all things to all me so that he may win a few. You cannot win or befriend a person until you show how much you care...not how much you know. I know the libertarian/Republican minded person wants to just focus on facts and figures and not become a bleeding heart or a wimp. I know, I have many friends on both sides of the aisle. However, you must empathize and know that you as a white person have not faced what it is like to get poor service in a restaurant for being black, being ignored by salespeople in a department store, unless they were watching you thinking you were going to steal. They don't know what it is like to have a daddy's boy from Yale get a corporate job because he was in a fraternity and althugh he made C's and D's landed that job over an Aftrican American male who made straight A's at Howard University.
Slavery was horrible, and no we shouldn't ignore the past....nor should we forget it. It is there, it makes up the fabric of this wonderful nation, no matter how flawed America and Americans are. We are the light of the world. Hence, we must change, our thinking, our laws, our policies, and the way we treat our fellow man, woman, boy and girl.

"We are the Dream," ... it didn't die with Dr. King, but we must live it and stop making insensitive remarks attempting to discount the horrible nature of slavery. We have to be on level and know that there were murderings of slaves that happened, and there were no consequences. Maybe that isn't holocaust or genocide, but it was and still is evil. We can't focus on Darfur and Rwanda and act like our past wasn't that bad.

We must be united, we must love one another, we must work together and do what is right, civil, and just for one another.

Soigne Toi,
Joshua W. Delano
Link
LouisianaCoastalPreservationPA C@Yahoo.com

I see nothing in his 6 points to argue with. Slavery existed, only 5% of African slaves wound up in the current USA, and America abolished it not as an uprising of the slaves, but a moral insight of ruling class. And many of us are here because of a disruption in the lives of our grandparents, and are glad to be here in spite of the pain of our grandparents. Turning this into a "racist" argument is nonsense.