I think who a person is has nothing to do with race, and has everything to do with personal choice, and who that person inherently is and can be.
Historically, all people, of all nationalities, have injured, oppressed, murdered, and pillaged others. (Well, maybe not the Swiss or the Swedes, but I'd have to go on a fact finding mission. I can't say I paid close attention in class.
) It has been said, by someone wise, that if we don't acknowledge our history, and learn from it, that we are doomed to repeat it. Conversely, and this is my opinion, allowing history to affect the present, can perpetuate those faults and misdeeds. To those individuals who are still waiting for an apology for historic misdeeds, stop "listening" and start "looking" for that apology. Apologies have been made, and continue to be made, in the form of actions, legislation, scholarship opportunities, etc. The old cliche "actions speak louder than words" applies here. True, perhaps opportunity doesn't knock on all doors equally, yet. I do agree that the system remains broken. However, there's no denying that great strides have been made, and continue to be made, towards equality.
Know what I don't understand? How can a person stand for civil equality of all people, yet attach to their person, a label?
There's no denying we're a tribal lot, but who does labelling ourselves, and dividing our citizenship into subsets benefit? Doesn't doing so set our nation up to remain a country of Star-Bellied Sneetches and Plain-Bellied Sneetches? We learned about the error of that type of thinking in kindergarten, reading Dr. Seuss.
It is my opinion that if a person is willing to label themselves, that person has acquiesced to being labeled by others. I'm a white, American citizen of questionable heritage. I believe a portion of my ancestry "became white" when the "one drop rule" was established. I have a Choctaw ancestor on the Dawe's list.
Who cares? Genealogy and heritage are fun and interesting hobbies, but they don't define us. The only label we should be willing to accept is "human", and we should strive to qualify that label with adjectives like "honest", "honorable", "dependable", and "kind".
Just my two cents, as worthless as ever, probably even more so, considering the economy.