"My ancestors owned your motherfucking ass. My ancestors owned your ass, bitch."

[MadCrow]

111. I recently discovered my family owned slaves.

In my studying my family tree I had my DNA tested at Ancestry.com . My paternal ancestors came from the West Indies and many of the matches listed in the results had African ancestry. When I researched further back I found that my 4th great- grandfather had owned many slaves back in the early 1800's. I had had no idea. So the only conclusion that I could draw was that somebody back then was fooling around with the help. I went to a database of slaves registered in the Caribbean where you can see the names and descriptions of slaves who are registered as property. At least the British freed their slaves without having to resort to a Civil War and its aftermath.

Later generations in my family lost most of their wealth. My great-grandmother emigrated to the US in 1916 after she was left a widow at age 36 with 8 children and no means to support them. She went to work in NYC and was eventually able to bring all of them to the US where they settled and eventually became citizens. She was a strong woman and an inspiration.

I agree that children have to be taught to hate a particular group or religion. We should all be judged as individuals based on our character and actions.