Kudos to Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Mr. Gates was the gentleman made temporarily famous recently for being arrested in his own home by the Cambridge Massachusetts Police Department in a kerfuffle about which many tried to make a racism issue.
In yesterday’s New York Times online, he pens an op-ed — “Ending the Slavery Blame-Game” — in which he discusses the role that African nations played in selling slaves to the West. He also tackles (and lays to rest) the excuses made by some for that role. His quote from Frederick Douglass was, I thought, a powerful one, and I heard echos of Mr. Beyersdorfer’s wonderful 2009 Festival sermon from Branson.
For those wanting to help make sure that they have a balanced view of history, I recommend it. Click here to head on over. And however poorly our society acknowledges the true God, I am — like Mr. Douglass apparently was — thankful for whatever slivers of His Truth and Way that have been present in Western civilization — for however long they will remain.
Thoughts En Route 
What is truly needed here is not reparations, but propitiation (1 John 2:1ff). The cost is too high and too tangled too late in the game for anything else. Egypt’s enslavement of Israel and its de facto reparations when Israel left comprised a very simple matter by comparison.
I really look forward to the time when true history, not distorted by human perceptions, will be made known!