And here again we arrive at the problem; you were not enslaved (and you're certainly not "recently freed"). Again, ethnically speaking, only part of you was enslaved. At least in the Atlantic slave trade.

But obviously, as some white people are ever so fond of reminding me every time I refer to the Atlantic slave trade, however tangentially, wHiTe PeOpLe WeRe EnSlAvEd ToO!!11!

So why don't you find it strange that white people aren't invested in the pre-slavery traditions of their ancestors? Why do you think that this particular piece of historical oppression is essential to who you are?

My dad was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone. It's one of the first places that freed slaves returning to Africa landed (hence the name). When I read about slavery, when I travel to Africa or the Caribbean (where my mother is from) and see the vestiges of slavery there, I feel deep empathy for what those people went through and how wrong what happened to them was. Just as I did when I went to Hiroshima and saw the Peace Memorial or to Poland and saw Auschwitz. Human suffering has no "race."

I feel the need to keep repeating this, because you keep seeming to miss that I'm saying it; I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with looking up your family history. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with maintaining old traditions. I never described this as racism. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that I did. But the way some black people want to define themselves through slavery is bizarre. And psychologically deeply unhealthy. "Blackness" is not defined by...well, by anything. But certainly not by suffering.