of america is built on slavery. is that an over statement? it s not. slavery was essential to the rise of american capitalism. it made people wealthy in the 19th century. it allowed folks, their folks, descendents to accumulate wealth have security stability and opportunities that weren t available to the enslaved population or oh descendents. yet is ben affleck right that we don t deserve credit or oh blame for our ancestors? it occurs to me that part of how the finding your roots series is set up from the beginning is the idea that we ll find stories and the stories will reveal something about who you are. so if you have someone this the past who was great then you are meant to feel good about that. well, if you have shn in the past who participated in the peculiar institution of slavery then aren t you also meant to then somehow feel responsible for that? i don t think we have to feel responsible for our ancestors.
they made choices in their particular moment. we should be responsible for the world that they gave us the legacy they bequeathed us. for someone like ben affleck it means coming up in a moment of opportunity. it was made possible by generations of wealth opportunity, prosperity. it essentially allowed him to become the person he is. it s not just individual talent or gumption. it s the result of generations. who we are is cumulative from the history from which we come i wonder how much we don t know about slavery. and not just oh the white folks i mean us as americans. our inability to contend with it. when you think of what we know what don t we know that we should? that s a big question. i know. can you explain slavery in
institutional, private individuals who benefitted from slavery. the question ben affleck at least provides us is how do we wrestle with the founding contradictions and how we wrestle with ongoing legacies of in inequality you show with the wealth gap and families. shg like fleet bank. these are corporations that didn t exist in their time. they inherited wealth from their original corporations. i think it is so systematic and an epidemic and unreconciled. it s not i believe it s misguided to solely focus on slavery. to be honest i think many americans think slavery was a long time ago. we have an african-american president, equality. anti-discrimination laws. that s always the sentence. that s the way. so let go of it. it s possible to look at the past with curiosity and humility and be open minded about the
guilty for the past. you can be guilty for how you live in the present. you can t be guilty for the past. one thing that was disappointing about the episode is it was a huge lost opportunity to tell a story of trance fortrancer for haitian. he is mother was a freedom rider. you go from slave owner to freedom rider to a liberal activist. to me that s a stand-in for this american story. we can transform. the idea that we haven t, i think is not a reality. we need to transform more. this point you make about the deaf thigss of whiteness and blackness, i want to tom coyou on that. i was looking at edward baptist writing about slavery and the making of american capitalism. he writes ideas about slavery s history determine the ways in which americans hope to resolve the long contradiction between the claims of the united states
progress. but that shrinking away is a barrier to our collective ability to tell the whole painful unvarnished truth of oh our past and how it affects our present. to participate this the american project at any level is to stand knee deep in the legacy of slavery. our contemporary social political and economic realities are built on the broken backs of those whose unpaid labor lays the tougs on which we stand. slavery is not the shame of individual families. it is the collective reality of american life. that discussion is next. why do we do it? why do we spend every waking moment, thinking about people? why are we so committed to keeping you connected? why combine performance with a conscience? why innovate for a future without accidents? why do any of it? why do all of it? because if it matters to you it s everything to us. the xc60 crossover. from volvo.