I've been trying to find the right way to articulate this-- but the folks on the right have it backwards about who is driven by "white guilt" --

This impulse to cover up and distort the history of slavery reeks of shame. It's, frankly, weird. Nobody has perfect ancestors, what sort of crisis of identity leads one to lie about the past.

It's just the things that happened. You learn about them you learn from them. You do better. Don't make it so emotional and personal.

I assume you get why it's not a nice thing to say that "slavery helped black people in some ways" but I think some people miss why this particular idea is *exceptionally* racist.

One of the main arguments to justify slavery was that it "civilized" black people by making us Christian & teaching us obedience to our "betters." Black people were "lucky" or "better off" as slaves.

It assumes that when people were enslaved they had no skills, nothing to offer, that they were basically animals.

Industrial Revolution iron method ‘was taken from Jamaica by Briton’

Wrought iron process that drove UK success was appropriated from black metallurgists, records suggest

The Guardian