Thinking about reparations makes me depressed. It reminds me of the millions of lives lost, the millions of talents wasted, the millions of lives made unhappy or stunted when if the evil of slavery and the subsequent Jim Crow laws had never existed, would have been ok. Nothing can repay the cost. Even the money some Jews received for the Holocaust can never repay their pain and suffering. Many people don't even understand the magnitude of this, and I can't explain it. I mean, it's really hard to imagine a million people, and the people who died because of slavery were millions and millions. And just imagine their lives snuffed out like a candle for profit. Imagine even more millions unable to use their talents, told to hate themselves, and that they were inferior, for profit, so that some dudes could feel superior.

I could not even understand how anyone could not be effected, that anyone could dismiss these feelings as 'silly' or not important. It's hard to put yourself in someone else's shoes, I guess. I remember a exhibit of lynching photos, and my embarrassing reaction was to be glad I wasn't white. I would have felt an even deeper shame then. I'm aware we're all brothers in the human race, but due to the enviroment I live in I tend to identify more with the victims, hung up like sides of meat for everyone to see. I don't really identify with the smiling faces in the crowd, smiling, but their lives must have been corrupted- it just seems impure to me to witness a murder.

This reminds me of the subtext of Kindred, which is that slavery corrupts everyone. All the slaveowners in this book are ruined by a moral corruption that overtakes them. The power structure in itself is enough to cause a corruption of morals. Is this effect really slavery's own punishment? No clue.