Hey, Right-Wing Whites: If You’re Not To blame For This Country’s History of Oppression Because You “weren’t around then”, You Can’t Take Credit The Good Parts, Either.

It is a common sentiment, among those who, like myself, are considered white, but who hold reactionary views on politics, that nobody has the right to expect them to take any responsibility for the history of white supremacy/enslavement/the Indigenous Genocide/the theft of half of Mexico by U.S. troops in an unprovoked invasion between 1846–48, because “we weren’t born then”, “it was before my time”, or “MY people weren’t here yet”.

The people who say this, however, who disavow any responsibility to heal the wounds of this country’s history, any obligation to work to make this a country where none of the crimes of the past are repeated in the future, contradict this disavowal by insisting that, even though they “weren’t around” then, they are somehow owed credit for everything anybody considers positive in this country.

They insist they are somehow entitled to thanks for the existence of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution(and, in some cases the Bill of Rights, though many of them only support the “you can have guns” part of that), and any piece of legislation ever passed by any Congress and signed by any president that anybody anywhere ever considered a good thing.

Those who weren’t even born in 1964, when the Civil Rights Act passed, even if they continually proclaim their support for “states’ rights”(i.e., the right of the states to restore legal segregation, which is all…