Ayers the Guilt Monger: “And we did enslave people for 250 years” In the recent debate between Ayers and D’Souza on "The Kelly File", with Ayers, former anti-Vietnam war activist and sometime mentor of President Obama, representing the leftist ashamed-to-be-an-American crowd and D’Souza, defending American exceptionalism, Ayers claimed that Americans should be ashamed of their record of 250 years of slavery.