Keep up the good work.

Race had nothing to do with my choice of Obama over McCain. I was not that crazy about Obama, but I knew that 'George Bush Light' was not going to get it. Ol' B-O-B was being kind when he said that 'John McCain [didn't] get it'. I would have used similar words, but added a few that I assume this blogger does not want on her blog'.

The point here is that most of us are beyond the race thing. Whites are starting to express frustration with the guilt trip that has been laid on them since the early 1960s, or maybe before. I have always resented it, because I am not carrying the DNA of anyone that ever owned slaves (at least not in the Americas, maybe in Ancient Europe, but not in the Americas).

On my father's side, in the 1850s, my ancestors risked life, freedom and property to help escaped slaves on their way (they, and the local Constabulary, even shot at slavecatchers and Federal Marshalls, brought in from out-of-State, while their wives and daughters were sneaking the escaped slave out the back door and down to a boat in the creek to get him on his way to Boston). Once the Civil War came, they fought, bled and some of them even died to put an end to slavery. Confederate apologists who assert that war was over something other than slavery fail to pay note to the men, at least on the Yankee side, who fought that war. Their diaries reveal that they volunteered for the military to help wipe the stain of slavery from our Country.

On my mother's side, her immediate ancestors came during the Civil War and marched off to fight for the Yankees shortly after arrival in New York, as they were willing to help fight slavery, because, as they stated, in Ireland they were little better than slaves under the English.

There are some interesting stories about the employment of escaped slaves as 'boomers' (railroad slang for casual labourers) on the railroads in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont (at least as far as the railroads went into Vermont, at the time). At the time, Brakeman was a job that no one wanted, as it was dangerous. When the train came to a downgrade, you had to walk along the top of the cars, while the train was moving, and set the brake on each car. Once it got to the bottom of the hill, you had to run along the top of the cars, again, while the train was moving, and release the brake on each car. Air Brakes did not arrive until the 1870s. If this did not get you, the type of couplers prevalent then could take and arm, if you were not careful. Escaped slaves were not unwilling to do the job, as they had never been paid for anything in their lives, and it helped speed them on their path to escape. One even commented to one of the relatives on my father's side that he had worked on cotton gins all his life and had never gotten anything for it but beatings, and a cotton gin would take your arm faster than anything on that railroad, so he was glad to work on the railroad and get paid for it.

My lack of feeling guilt for anything goes back further than the restaurant manager's.

We're trying a lot of different things with this blog– this post is just one of them. I hope you looked at the rest of the site and that you have interesting, civilly-worded suggestions for how we can improve it.

But the racial roles were pretty blatant in that comment, huh? There are really only two: owning people as property, and being property. If you don't belong in either of those two camps, then all is well!