Today is the 150th anniversary of the end of slavery. How much of an impact does slavery still have on African Americans today?

Having been discriminated and literally beat up for my skin pigmentation, namesake, and looks; i feel that I can connect with African Americans. I also feel that while we can't forget the past, we must work to move past the issues from way back when.
African American's need to stop with the nigga word, it's obvious it is the same as nigger. Just quit using it, period. You touched on that a bit in your opening post. We need to come together as a Nation and publicly condemn the music of today that uses perverse language and calls all women out of their names. We need to quit with the sexing up of everything. We need to come together as all people, since we are in fact one species. race is all b.s., we just have varying pigmentation.

We need to be careful when we are trying to bring light to issues. Black lives matter is completely wrong, should be all lives matter. I could write volumes...


Back to the original question: It has a huge impact. African Americans can't forget, and they shouldn't be expected to. But African American's need to realize that a few bad apples are getting you stirred up. We love you, and we got to live in harmony as Mankind. We can't let ourselves be caught up in the propaganda. Denounce these charlatans such as Reverend Al Sharpton- he is a hate monger.

I was trying to read the it here comments. It never ended Obama party has done more to keep black people down. Forcing them into failing schools. To making banks loan them money for a house they cannot afford. And screwing up there credit. And with affirmative action we have let them attend schools that they are not academically prepared for. And this happens to white people too. When I hear his spokes people calling for the killing of White people I'm scared for my family safety.

Apparently it didn't set back Ben Carson. He's pretty pleased with how it worked out. Maya Angelo said "history dispite it's wrenching pain cannot be relived but if faced with courage need not be lived again..." There are people who have not faced what history has revealed to us. It's not something to get over it get past we must face it together and never forget because history always has an uncanny way of reapeating itself.

Ill post an article from Walter Williams that I feel puts this discussion in perspective.

The True Black Tragedy
Walter E. Williams | May 20, 2015
Hustlers and people with little understanding want us to believe that today's black problems are the continuing result of a legacy of slavery, poverty and racial discrimination. The fact is that most of the social pathology seen in poor black neighborhoods is entirely new in black history. Let's look at some of it.
Today the overwhelming majority of black children are raised in single female-headed families. As early as the 1880s, three-quarters of black families were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black families were two-parent. One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all the children had the same mother and father.
Today's black illegitimacy rate of nearly 75 percent is also entirely new. In 1940, black illegitimacy stood at 14 percent. It had risen to 25 percent by 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" and was widely condemned as a racist. By 1980, the black illegitimacy rate had more than doubled, to 56 percent, and it has been growing since. Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks.
Much of today's pathology seen among many blacks is an outgrowth of the welfare state that has made self-destructive behavior less costly for the individual. Having children without the benefit of marriage is less burdensome if the mother receives housing subsidies, welfare payments and food stamps. Plus, the social stigma associated with unwed motherhood has vanished. Female-headed households, whether black or white, are a ticket for dependency and all of its associated problems. Ignored in all discussions is the fact that the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits since 1994.
Black youth unemployment in some cities is over 50 percent. But high black youth unemployment is also new. In 1948, the unemployment rate for black teens was slightly less than that of their white counterparts -- 9.4 percent compared with 10.2. During that same period, black youths were either just as active in the labor force or more so than white youths. Since the 1960s, both the labor force participation rate and the employment rate of black youths have fallen to what they are today. Why? Are employers more racially discriminatory today than yesteryear? Were black youths of yesteryear more skilled than whites of yesteryear? The answer to both questions is a big fat no.
The minimum wage law and other labor regulations have cut off the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. Put yourself in the place of an employer, and ask: If I must pay $7.25 an hour -- plus mandated fringes, such as Social Security and workers' compensation -- would it pay me to hire a worker who is so unfortunate as to possess skills that enable him to produce only $5 worth of value per hour? Most employers view that as a losing economic proposition. Thus, the minimum wage law discriminates against the employment of low-skilled workers, who are most often youths -- particularly black youths.
The little bit of money a teenager can earn through after-school, weekend and summer employment is not nearly so important as the other things he gains from early work experiences. He acquires skills and develops good work habits, such as being prompt, following orders and respecting supervisors. In addition, there are the self-respect and pride that a youngster gains from being financially semi-independent. All of these gains from early work experiences are important for any teen but are even more important for black teens. If black teens are going to learn anything that will make them a more valuable employee in the future, they aren't going to learn it from their rotten schools, their dysfunctional families or their crime-ridden neighborhoods. They must learn it on the job.
The bulk of today's problems for many blacks are a result of politicians and civil rights organizations using government in the name of helping blacks when in fact they are serving the purposes of powerful interest groups.

It has no impact... The issue died 150 years ago and special interest groups keep its ghost alive by haunting the present with its memories....

SPC Andrew Griffin I am a little late here,but looks as though SSG Warren Swan says it all.

Probably not a popular answer but not much more than they allow it to have on themselves. Probably less so for white people, though.

I have lived in many different places in America, the place that taught me the most was South Central Los Angeles. My knowledge of people grew and the only question I could never get answered is how do you decide who receives Reparations? How does congress trace each individual blood line to each deserving family?

The question posed is almost impossible to answer. There probably would be very few African-Americans were it not for slavery, so it is quite difficult to have a point of comparison. I think it is fair to say however, that the general perception of some inferiority of black Americans held by a large segment of the population comes directly from the history of slavery. If the only black people in the US were regular immigrants from Africa then the perceptions might be quite different. The attitudes of the black citizenry might also be quite different. Those not coming from slave roots seem to have a different perspective. Rather than trash government policies intended to better the lot of a significant segment of the population, perhaps we should focus on what we can do differently. For those interested in economic history, there were thriving black business communities in many northern cities in the early 1920's. Former slaves and their children had moved north, found jobs in growing economy, and started their own businesses. The Great Depression killed that and the downhill slide of the society has continued. Genetics? I hope not. What we see in the inner cities is not pretty and we haven't been able to help that. I wish I knew the answers, but we collectively aren't getting the job done.

Far from it actually but Ok. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8f64fb25931242a985bc30e3f5a9a0b2/ap-global-supermarkets-selling-shrimp-peeled-slaves