Youth / OPINION : ‘We Didn’t Sell Them Into Slavery’

DEANNA PALFREY

Junior, 17, Hamilton High School, Los Angeles

I’m not safe from persecution in the classroom. I feel we spend more time in my history class talking about what whites owe blacks than just about anything else when the issue of slavery comes up. I often receive dirty looks. This seems strange given that I wasn’t even alive then. And the few members of my family from that time didn’t have the luxury of owning much, let alone slaves. So why, I ask you, am I constantly made to feel guilty? Even though some of my best friends have been black and are not prejudiced, they do not represent the vast majority of African-Americans in L.A. who are increasingly leaning toward hatred of non-blacks.

Why is it OK for them to preach against whites, Asians, Latinos, whoever? Why am I the butt of racist jokes, and why isn’t anyone else speaking out? Why is it OK for blacks to forget common courtesy when in contact with me? And why am I expected to put up with it?

I’m so tired of anything and everything being turned into a racial issue. I’m tired of people looking at my skin and not only judging me, but thinking I owe them something. What’s wrong with looking and acting “white” (whatever that is)? Can’t I have pride in my Irish-Hungarian ethnicity?

JOHNNY PARTNER

Junior, 16, Coronado High School, West Covina

I don’t think that anybody owes us (blacks) anything. I believe that we owe it to ourselves to do the best we can at all times.

In my opinion, blacks excel in all fields. We’re good in sports, in architecture, and we do well in all types of business. I really believe that as a people we are doing all right on our own.

We owe it to ourselves to keep doing what we’re doing better and better, and to keep doing it right. Our people need to keep rising to higher and higher levels of achievement in whatever we choose to do.

JANA LONG

Junior, 16, Los Altos High School, Hacienda Heights

I don’t think white people owe anything to black people. We didn’t sell them into slavery, it was our ancestors. What they did was wrong, but we’ve done our best to make up for it.

There have always been people who have been discriminated against. Look at the Jews who were killed in World War II. People are sorry about what happened, but what is past is past. It can’t be changed. We can always try to do better in the future.

I think we are all equal. We shouldn’t pay more attention to one race than the others. No race of people is superior to another. I think most people believe in equal rights. There is always going to be some discrimination where ever you go.

The key to getting along is understanding and teaching. Kids should be taught when they are young to respect others, no matter what their race, religion or beliefs. They have to learn that you have to get to know people and that you can’t judge them because of who and what they are.

JANICE NORMANDY

Senior, 17, Diamond Bar High School, Diamond Bar

Yes, whites owe blacks a great deal of respect plus a place where they know they shouldn’t feel any resentment.

Giving a person a life that they can control themselves is the greatest gift a person can receive. We were put on this earth to make the best of our lives, not someone else’s. All the violence and segregation must remain in the past. There is no room for apathy.

The same goes if blacks repaid whites by violence and isolation, the same evil cycle will still nourish us, evolving into the hatred that remains today.

There are still places in our so-called land of the free where segregation is still dominant. These people that play this childish behavior need to broaden their minds and learn to live with a variety of people in our society. History has a big influence in our lives, our attitudes and whether it is positive or negative still affects us as a whole person, like it or not.

Unfortunately, with all these influences, it will also take time to see any changes. Even so, I feel it is worth it to start now and make that change.

TINA SARACENO

Age 14, Lindburgh Middle School, Long Beach

At my school, there are a lot of blacks. Black students and black teachers and a black principal. There is a lot of discrimination in the classroom. For instance, if a black kid does something wrong in a black teacher’s class, he gets off easy. If a white kid does the same thing, he gets into big trouble.

I think that blacks should feel lucky that now they have their freedom and whites have helped them get there. Blacks should learn to show the same respect to whites that they show to their own people. Blacks and whites should respect one another equally.

Really, we are all the same, no matter what color we are. I think we should be helping each other instead of fighting all the time.

MATTHEW DAVIS

Junior, 16, Diamond Bar High School

Slavery is a part of America’s past that cannot be erased or forgotten. It is another example of man’s inhumanity to man that cries out for justice. There have been those over the years who have recognized those injustices and sought to do something about them. At the end of the Civil War, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, giving the slaves their freedom. They were legally free, but their freedom wasn’t experienced on a practical level. It’s been the struggle of the black community to realize a freedom that has already been granted to them.

In more recent times, the black community has become more involved in their own cause. For example, in the ‘60s, blacks led by Martin Luther King Jr. marched in protest for the same simple rights that white people had enjoyed for the last two centuries. During this period of time, legislation was enacted giving blacks simple freedoms.

However, once again we find history repeating itself in that what is true in a technical sense is not true in a practical matter. The truth of the matter is that man harbors a prejudice in his heart that is passed on from generation to generation. Until we can keep what is in the past in the past and focus on the future, we are only doomed to repeat history.