You should I already regret writing this comment because I know what I'm saying will engage in lot of anger. But I don't normally get this opportunity so what the hell:;

No I don't expect African-American people to say thank you for not being slaves or having a right to vote. And I also acknowledge that there is nothing that can be said or done to make up for the horrible offense done to African Americans for hundreds of years.

That being said:

It's not 1619 or 1863.

Now while I'm very aware there's no Hallmark Card that says: "Sorry my ancestors sold your ancestors" I would however like to know when the statute of limitations runs out from this offense and/or what could be done to make all of this right.

I'm not asking for a simple solution. I know there isn't one. I'm aso very sure there isn't a complicated one. But at the very least I suspect you might be able to come up with a very detailed list as to what could be done to move forward at least so everyone would know how to figure it out for the rest of society.

If you can do that, wonderful. We can find a blueprint forward and we'll have at least and outline.

If you don't and want to stay angry the rest of your lvies, well, that's also fine. I can't pretend I don't understand the logic for it.

What's NOT fine, however, is that not only AFrican-Americans but every contingent of the left in some form has decided to stay somewhere in the middle: where you are allowed to always be angry and withhold any semblance of unity AND YET everyone else in the world still has the burden of having to atone for those sins even though we don't know how and we're doing it wrong anyway. That was the general theme of my article by the way but let's let that go.

I am maddened how people on the left constant argue that it is the job of everyone else to pick a side but they never choose to be part of anyone else's. So let me make it clear what I do think needs to happen:

You can choose to make allegiances with people you have disputes with in the idea of a greater good down the road. Or you can exist outside the system perpetually and never choose to belong

You can choose to be, however reluctantly, part of a coalition of the American experience and all that comes with it. Or you can exist separate from it choosing to make demands but never contributing anything.

You can choose to accept that in order for anything to change you have to make compromises, accept less than what you want and move slowly to a better future. Or you can choose to abandon in altogether and spend the rest of your life, engaging in your own independent movement mocking the system for being inadequate.

The choice is yours and you are welcome to either. However if you choose the latter - as many of you on this site seem more than willing to do - it will be much harder for you to blame those of us who choose to either not listen to you or to move towards a society that is less forgiving of you. Writings by you and your colleagues do acknowledge that the country seems to moving right but curiously you don't seem to think that your behavior and rhetoric, combined with your overal refusal to involve yourself in a process that you find fundamentally corrupt, has any connection to it. It is one thing to argue your interests aren't being represented, that is the American way. But when you spend decades refusing to engage in the only way to have your voice heard - and given the amount of people who basically say that an increasingly fassicst racist GOP is exactyl the same as a Democraitc party who at least believes in protecting your rights even if they do a shoddy job of doing so - then I honestly don't know what you expected to happen. You do have a right to vote and if you're not going to use it, that's also your right. You then don't get to complain as much as those of us who do use it because we do regard it as a chance to have our voice heard. You want to have your voice heard online and through marching and advocating BUT NOT VOTING. And then when people see those chants and marches and vote the other way, you apparently look in the mirror say: Nothing we could have done.

Thank you, though, for at least acknowledging things are better now. Most of your colleagues won't even got that far.