Brown University is named after a family, some of whom were also slave traders.
harvard has some slavery issues in its background
Where does this end? I've heard Jewish culture has a belief that seems quite instructive: reminding the repentant of their past misdeeds is itself a sin. It makes sense, if you keep doing that you are sowing division and reconciliation and progress is impossible.
This isn't 1920. No one alive held slaves in the United States and no one living was emancipated by Lincoln. As someone who grew up in CA, post Civil Rights movement, little of this outrage makes any sense to me. It all upsets me because I see it as trouble makers inflaming passions and causing mistrust for their own ideological and financial benefit.
I'm one of those naive "do unto others..." types who focuses on individuals, isn't into collectivism and is very forgiving. I've got the national media, activists, my workplace, telling me about "white privilege," telling me to kneel, making me feel like I didn't work hard to have what I have (and what I've shared with others), that I didn't grow up how I did because my father worked hard throughout his life.
There is so much rage being shared, I step back, I look at my closest black friends who spend holidays with, my coworkers, my interracial relationships, and wonder what they really think about me because I'm white. Do they still see ME, who I am and who I've been to them, or do they see a racial stereotype, have they been co-opted by the mass hysteria? Am I no longer an individual? That's why mob justice is so problematic.
A few years ago I dated someone who was all about BLM. That person was violent in the relationship so when I see this stuff in the media, in company communications, in conversations, I go right back to that person's rage, how I felt about my safety and how it negatively impacted my trust & later relationships.
We cannot allow ourselves, and our nation, to be controlled by fascism in the guise of social justice. We cannot allow the media to shape the narrative and divide us. We are individuals, not a collective. We are ultimately responsible for ourselves.
Do things need to be done about police use of force? Of course. Do things need to be done about black-on-black violence? YES. Would reparations make a difference? NO. We spent trillions in the last century with corrosive and failed policies of welfare and affirmative action. We need to demand troubled communities police themselves, have higher expectations (responsible fathers) and value education opportunities. We need to help them demand accountability and results from the political class and self-appointed community leaders rather than empty platitudes and self-enrichment. We must also demand fair enforcement of online community standards from Google/Youtube, Facebook and the rest.