Don - Well, it isn't a question of needing to feel guilty, it's just a question of recognizing historical tragedies and injustices, that's all. I also do not feel guilty for what some ancestors of mine may have done, but I do feel a sense of outrage when I read a book like "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee". One does not have to be a member of a people who have suffered to feel empathy with their sorrow, nor does one have to take on unearned guilt from the actions of one's ancestors either.

What happened to North American Indians between 1500 and recent times was utterly horrific. I would not expect you to feel guilty over it, since you didn't do it, but it would not seem surprising to me if reading about it made you feel angry and sorrowful on their behalf. That's how it affected me.

It seems natural to me that any tale of atrocity to any human beings anywhere would stir feelings of outrage in a person. We are all, after all, members of one human race.

The thing that puzzles me is when people are so fixated on their OWN particular group (whether it be whites, blacks, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Native Americans, or left-handed red-haired dentists from Schenectady)...that they are seemingly unable to see or discuss any issue except from the specific standpoint and bias of THAT GROUP.

Check out the O.J.Simpson trial for a spectacular example of that sort of bizarre attitude carried to the extremes of the hypocrisy and zenophobia that it fosters.

One is either willing to look at humanity as a single nation with common rights, and look beyond one's own specific group identity, and act accordingly...or one is doomed to repeat the mistakes of past generations, and fall into tribal warfare and oppression.

I consider myself a member of no group whatsoever...I am a human being, and that's all that matters. (The process of reincarnation has in any case landed me in virtually every group out there by now, so it would be very silly to fixate on just one of them at this point...)

- LH