I think she's basically right about this, despite my aversion to the politics she shares with the rest of Bush and Company. Wish she could have simply become a professor or piano player...

Paul - originalfaith.com

Sent by Paul Maurice Martin | 11:01 AM ET | 03-28-2008

Perhaps a residual anger that the Secretary cannot talk about led her to be a cause in lower our defenses to terrorist attack prior to 9/11 and also led her to assist in starting a war that damages our country. Or maybe she's just inept.

Sent by Adam Herbst | 11:57 AM ET | 03-28-2008

Oh no, she spoke poorly of America!! Burn her at the stake!!

So now are we gonna hear 5-second soundbites of Ms Rice saying "birth defect", instead of paying attention to her real message?

Sent by Angela Vetri | 12:43 PM ET | 03-28-2008

USA is the champion in dealing with racism, in comparison with France, Great Britain, Australia. Powell, Rice, Oprah, Obama...would not have made it anywhere else...

Sent by Robert Yao | 12:51 PM ET | 03-28-2008

Well, looks like the paranoid Alex Jones contingent has wieghed in. Nice work Adam.

Aaaanywho, how lomg do are we required to have this dialog about race? A thousand years? Does TALK actually result in ANY tangible results? Why can't we just MOVE ON and each and every one of us take personal responsibility for our own station in life starting now? Why must we always be compelled to TALK all the time? Why not just DO?

Sent by deek | 1:17 PM ET | 03-28-2008

Sec. Rice is right. This is an important conversation for this country to have. She should be commended for crediting Sen. Obama in the face of the significant political differences they have.

Sent by Gary | 1:32 PM ET | 03-28-2008

Does no one object to the use of the term "birth defect" in this context? When talking about actual people, http://www.traponline.com/language.htm suggests, "Use the terms congenital disability or birth anomaly. Avoid the terms birth defect or affliction." I know many would think this is Politically Correct minutiae, but let's respect people with disabilities, black and white, by trying to improve our vocabulary. I hope this raises at least one person's awareness of person-first language, and I hope that Secretary Rice can make a stronger distinction between biological and societal afflictions.

Sent by Wendy Bourg (last name as in iceBERG) | 2:07 PM ET | 03-28-2008

Since the Hannity's, Oreilly, Engram etc had a problem with Obama speech, how about Rice. I guess you would hear something similar from Powell, I also guess you will hear something similar from 99% of the Football and basketball heroes, whose names are clearly written on the backs of the T shirts you wear everyday.

Sent by Ty | 2:56 PM ET | 03-28-2008

Condi Rice is not perfect, but she is black, and she is intelligent. And she's right, partly; this country never treated Africans with the same respect it treated lighter-skinned races. In fact, what she doesn???t say is that in the world as a whole, almost no one does.

And I agree with her; it is hard for us to confront our racial disrespect. But we???re not alone with that. She should say so.

On the other hand, I can not agree with people like the Rev Wright who blame whites for all the problems of blacks in America today. In fact, I have a very good example of why that is not true, it's the Japanese-Americans who were interned here during WWII. If anyone was treated badly, it was them, yet they didn't turn into drug dealers & unwed mothers & school dropouts with a self-pity complex. They formed a well-ordered community inside the camps, very decent, with schools, government, responsibilities clearly laid out in the camps, and they continued their lives afterward, not without emotional scars, but they functioned. The internees didn???t become a race of criminals, and blame it on whites. I don't see that happening with black people. Blacks live like they have no respect for each other. So how can they expect anyone else to?

I know it's hard to hold your head up when everybody else puts you down, but now is the best opportunity blacks have ever had it in this country, and they're wasting it!

If I could speak to the Rev Wright, or Barak Obama, I'd tell them it's not enough to ask for equal opportunities from everyone else, blacks have to organize their own lives well first. They have to keep their own men from running drugs, keep their men & women from treating each other like one-night stands, treat their children like every child is so special that each one will go on to be a fine, upstanding citizen. Frankly, it's up to them now, nobody else. If they don???t treat each other with decency, no one else will respect them.

Sent by J Rhinehart, South Carolina | 6:29 PM ET | 03-28-2008

wow, an actual grown-up in the gang who couldn't think straight. you go girl!

and if talking is the alternative to the jena loosana style of doing -- I say put on the kettle, lets make some tea, and set us all down for chewing some fat.

Sent by tim in exile | 6:52 PM ET | 03-28-2008

Rice may be saying something with good, strong intent, but I have to question the choice of the phrase "birth defect". Ouch. It is not exactly empowering or uplifting. Or accurate. No European has ever historically had the right to inflict any form of genetic defect on any African American. African Americans are not inferior, as that phrase more than implies. This is a troubling glimpse into an interesting psychology. African Americans have had a tremendously challenged and sorrowful past at the hands of European descended Americans, but to say that is a "birth defect"? Especially compared to actual medical birth defects and handicaps? I am not so sure that is appropriate.

Sent by nurse | 12:08 AM ET | 03-29-2008

"Birth defect" is a dazzling choice of words. Thank you for minting this new working metaphor, Condi.

Sent by George de Man | 7:36 AM ET | 03-29-2008

I think she is using the term birth defect in reference to the birth of the nation, meaning that our country was founded at the same time slavery was widespread- at the very same time that some revolutionary men were coming up with phrases like, "all men are created equal". she is not saying that black people have birth defects as some here seem to be suggesting.

Sent by wes | 11:11 AM ET | 03-29-2008

She is so wrong. If anyone talks about "BIRTH DEFECT" it must be referred to the continent (the Americas) stolen from the First Nation Peoples. No matter when or how we came: as masters or slaves, as immigrants or refugees, we are now all walking, building houses and institutions on stolen land.

Making this history an issues of who were the founding people i.e.: blacks and whites its outrageously wrong. The reality is that the struggle that is going on right now between blanks and whites has nothing to do with race-relations in this continent, it is nothing else but a struggle for economic power and control over stolen land. Period.

Respectfully

Anna

(not a native person, but, as everybody else, someone who is also walking on stolen land)

Sent by Anna from Canada | 12:00 PM ET | 03-29-2008

I can hardly believe my eyes/ears...? A deplorable Secretary of State, Best thing she's ever been quoted on. Where has this person been?

Sent by Michael P. | 12:37 PM ET | 03-29-2008

To me "birth defect" implies a defect in the founding of the country, not some biological desire to repress blacks in America.
At J. Rhinehart, Not all blacks in America are disrespectful, criminals with low morals. Also to some degree I agree that blacks should strive to improve themselves and their families. But so should everyone. I live in a community where whites and other racial/ethnic groups share the same negative traits you attribute to blacks. It's mostly about socialization, economics and education. How can you expect people to improve themselves when the school systems are crap, jobs are few and/or low paying? This is an American problem not limited to any one race/ethnicity.

Sent by student | 12:56 PM ET | 03-29-2008

...it's as a birth defect of our nation. Yes nations do give birth to twisted notions that are difficult to shake, hence defective.

I believe Deek has stolen Fred Call's podium...anyone else notice?

Sent by George | 1:00 PM ET | 03-29-2008

I wish someone would dig the old Nast cartoons. Anti Irish sentiment was regularly featured in the dehumanizing cartoons by Thomas Nast; such as his ???Paddy in the North balances Sambo in the South,??? the cover for Harper???s Weekly, 9 December, 1876 (Lee and Casey, 666). This cartoon features two ape like figures, Paddy and Sambo. They balance each other on a scale, representing the equal burdens of rural blacks and Urban Irish on America. Frequently the Irish were equated with blacks; in fact blacks were often referred to as ???Smoked Irish.??? Indentured servants may have fled starvation and opretion by the British by choice, but being an indentured servant was no picnic. Women were often rapped by their master, when they would become pregnant they were told getting pregnant breaks the rules of your contract you owe me two more years of service. Never mind the fact that they wouldn't have gotten pregnant if they weren't raped. Also, Irish catholic immigrants were given jobs that were considered too dangerous for slaves to do, slaves were more valuable, Catholics expendable because their worthless.

Sent by Lisa Tyler | 1:28 PM ET | 03-29-2008

I concur with Ms. Tyler. There is even a Book entitled White N***** about the Irish. In the 19th century Irish and Blacks were in "competition" for the lowest jobs. It works the same way today as the corporate end game is to pit groups against each other and drive down wages.

It is shameful that right wingers (espeically the AM radio race hustlers) routinely exploit race in 2008 as if it was 1860.

The same Nativist bunch that attacked "disloyal" immigrants, usually Irish and Catholic, is toady at work in the Republican party right wing. Sadly, there are many Irish and Catholics today(contary to explicit Church teaching otherwise) that endorse race-baiting and anti-Mexican immigrant racism based on "being different." They forget the challenges and discrimination suffered by their fathers and grandfathers for "being different."

This is America. By definition we are different.

Or, we can be the useful idiots of the right wing of the Republican Party and retreat to our own seperate corners as Mr. Obama correctly reported in his eloquent race speech.

Sent by Edmond J. O'Neill | 3:02 PM ET | 03-29-2008

While it is true that the Japanese were horrible denied their rights and forcefully interned at Manzanar and other places during WWII simply for being Japanese, one cannot compare their situation with that of African Americans in this country. Japanese Americans were singled out for a few years as being possible "traitors" due only to their genetic make-up, but African Americans were systematically denied their rights, lynched, raped, politically disenfranchised, and stigmatized from roughly 1680-1968 throughout the United States. Not to deny the inhumane treatment suffered by Japanese American citizens during the war, when German American citizens were not treated the same way despite Fascist Germany's actions, but please do not reduce the argument to "Japanese people are fine, why aren't blacks?" To do so is to trivialize the African Holocaust.

Sent by Nadia K Orton | 4:54 PM ET | 03-29-2008

It's great to know the history of a people, and to compare them as equals at certain "periods" of time (i.e. the Irish, Blacks, Chinese in the 1800's). But when you look at them from an infinite number of years ago, compare them, and follow their social, political, etc., status in this country up until today... then you can understand what Condoleezza and Obama meant in their speeches.
It isn't the fact that it happened, but the fact that it's still happening.

Sent by Apu Nahasapemapedelan | 5:48 PM ET | 03-29-2008

She of course has a point....as an englishman, I do feel that blacks have come further in this country than in Europe due to the Civil Rights movement.

I hope soon the time will come when no one has to "play the race card" to get sympathy, or to get "a leg up". In a fair and free society we should be able to all stand on our own two feet.

I guess we are not yet at that point. My only qustion to the Oboma and Rice is...how do we get there?

Sent by Stuart Wright | 11:31 PM ET | 03-29-2008

I'm surprised Mrs.Rice of all people should say this. How many white people exactly have reached the same level as she did? One out of 50 million!

How many white people are poor? Quite a lot.

What does it mean to the average person what color those are who run the government? NOTHING!

And in business? It's all about actual performance, period. A business owner will hire people because they work well. If he does anything else, he's losing money.

If they'd rather hire white people than blacks (especially when removing affirmative action hiring), that must be related to the performance of black people, not to racism, because "money has no color". Stock holders don't care who is working for them.

Black people who work well reach the highest positions in business. Those who don't can only blame themselves. Exactly like white or Asian people.

History has nothing to do with it. We ALL have a bad history. White people have suffered horrible wars, even in recent history. They've been enslaved, too. Muslim slavers attacked Southern Europe until the 19th century, when France finally put an end to it by invading Algeria. Until then, over the previous 300 years, more than 1 million white Europeans were enslaved by North African countries.

Mrs. Rice having achieved great things cannot possibly blame anyone in the US for holding her back. Quite obviously, she's just embarrassed about the lousy performance of other blacks. She should not - those blacks who do badly have nothing in common with her. She is more related to hard working, successful white and Asian people than to black drug dealers.

Sent by Pro Libertate | 3:51 AM ET | 03-30-2008

How long will this problem exist? How much will be enough for the black race to feel equal? Great strides have been made but it is never enough!

Sent by Margie E. | 9:14 AM ET | 03-30-2008

if she had a real medical birth defect or understood what that is like, she wouldn't have used that terminology

Sent by al | 9:26 AM ET | 03-30-2008

As you read these comments, one realizes how superior our white brothers and sisters still think they are. I look at the talk of "black drug dealers" and think of how "black" and "drug dealer" is connected. No one mentions the "white drug dealers", who is at the top is this feeding chain--the true "white (master) drug dealers" as they are the supreme purveyors of drugs. "White (master) drug dealers" are the owners of the distribution chain and as such are out of sight and out of mind. By the time we see some of the product being distributed then the whole operation turns the drug trade into a "black thang". Such a pity.

Sent by Mollie | 11:31 AM ET | 03-30-2008

her comments are null and void, merely because "birth defect" is a phrase with at least a trace of negative emotion. not matter what point she makes, we must throw out her entire argument because of this one phrase.

or so I hear. no wonder we have problems in this world...

Sent by Nate | 11:51 AM ET | 03-30-2008

Just injecting a little missing "diversity" here George. Hope I don't frighten and confuse.

Sent by deek | 12:54 PM ET | 03-30-2008

Point is,the white people do not know how badly they still treat and think of black people. Wherever there are black people, white people have schemes in the background to keep the black people oppressed. You can analyze the plight of blacks in US, in Europe, Australia, South America and the Indies, and Africa. Blacks in all these countries are kept struggling because they are hated and disliked from birth. No matter how pure one's mind is and how successful one is, if you are black, even the lowest of the lowest of white people still think they are better than you. This is why some Latino blacks say that they are Spanish. They refuse to be called black even though they are black. They are struggling to be seen as not black when we all can see clearly that they are black. They wish they were white and they are forever running away from themselves. They even look down upon fellow black people in their quest for a superior feel. Never the less, the color remains. Racism has caused a people to dislike themselves even though God gave them a beautiful color.

There are rules and regulations, language, and covert undertakings in this world that you will never believe, that are designed to keep black people as the under class. These same practices are also designed to make black people think that they are inferior kind of people. There are very few white people who really think that any black human is equal to them. This is the plain truth.
No wander quite a few white people in public life have said derogatory statements about blacks. This is because when blacks are not around, all the bad words about them are spoken freely. Once in a while when these white folk relax too much in public, the truth about how they view blacks comes out. What a shame.

Sent by Tired | 1:15 PM ET | 03-30-2008

self-pity complex. They formed a well-ordered community inside the camps, very decent, with schools, government, responsibilities clearly laid out in the camps, and they continued their lives afterward, not without emotional scars, but they functioned. The internees didn???t become a race of criminals...
Sent by J Rhinehart, South Carolina | 6:29 PM ET | 03-28-2008J Rhinehart, South Carolina | 6:29 PM ET |>>>

Again....it's comments like these where people try to compare past histories of discrimination that are so far from an accurate comparison. Black Americans who are descendants of former slaves who were forced into this country, raped, beaten, put down, kept from learning how to read or vote and had to fight through Jim Crow for decades up until recently is a story that should not be compared with the internment and racial discrimination, loss of property and jobs of a group of Japanese Americans who were the children of immigrants who came here to escape issues in their country or worked to get here to pursue a better life. It makes no story any less special but it's a completely different story. A number of Asian Americans came out against another Asian American journalist who insinuated the same thing. This is a completely insensitive and biased idea of the American story.

This is not to say that the black community doesn't have work to do. But your claim that African Americans are a race of criminals and hustlers shows your ignorance to the vast contributions that black Americans have made to the US in terms of science, architecture, medicine, labor, law, arts and culture, education...and so on. There is a disproportionate amount of issues that affect our communities....but it's the result of a very complicated history that will take a more diverse approach than pick yourself up from your own bootstraps. If you don't recall, the people who tried to do that...MLK, Malcolm X and so on got ASSASSINATED when they tried to uplift black American from that approach and many other groups who have tried similar approached on more local levels have likewise been harassed and watched and harmed similarly.

There are a lot of opportunities for all of our communities to acknowledge our histories and to work together to create a safer, more equal society. but we cannot blame and attack one another or pit groups' stories against each other.

Sent by Rasheedah | 2:39 PM ET | 03-30-2008

It is the White drug dealers that bring the drugs to the black drug dealers.

Sent by albert | 5:42 PM ET | 03-30-2008

Let's see. You put your money in a bank. I rob the bank. The sheriff is my brother and so I am not arrested, but get to spend it as I see fit. The bank closes due to lack of funds (that I now have). I use the money to send my kids to college and invest in many companies. You have lost your life savings and your children get minimum wage jobs.
Now, can we just forget about the past and say everyone is equal and let's just get on with life.
You have a problem with this?
Get over it!

The rationalizations of the dominant groups to justify the theft of other people's land and lives astound my mind. Then arguing that the victims should just accept their losses without protest or even notice of the effect on their lives is incomprehensible. This will end when those who have been stolen from have received a portion of the benefit from their land and labor.
As a hillbilly, my group has not been the beneficiary of much, but I am living on stolen land, eating food produced by immigrant workers, using tools created by minimum wage labor and singing along with white singers who haven't yet paid the black composers for their creativity.
It is still to my benefit if we just go on from here.

Sent by D Nik Tressler | 6:08 PM ET | 03-30-2008

To pro Libertate...

I understand exactly what you are saying and you provide exactly the point the point that I have been trying to make. Sir you live in a world that should exist but simply doesn't. The thing that you have to understand is that it is not the best and brightest of the black community that is truly suffering but the average because quite simply put this country deals quite differently with average blacks than it does with average whites. even among the best and brightest. If You were to take an average of employers looking to hire nbew talent. and in many cases there are a black candidate and a white candidate. now they both have the same education and qualifications how many more times do you think that white candidate will be hired over the black candidate. So now black people realize this so they know they have to go over and beyond the call of duty just to get the job nevermind the fact that they were just as qualified as anybody else but the fact that it is still hard to get in the door with out being better by head and shoulders above the rest. do you think that it is fair for society to expect that for black people to compete with white they must be special in some way that sets them apart? What i'm sauing is it's not the racist who are providing the biggest opposition to the new conversation but it is people who would rather pretend that it wasn't as bad as everyone thinks it was or people who would rather pretend that it doesn't exist now. The only way for us to move on from here is to actively engage in the issue of why the conditon exits as it is.

Sent by J.A. WILSON | 6:59 PM ET | 03-30-2008

i think she's using the term "birth defect" as a metaphor...

Sent by shani | 7:03 PM ET | 03-30-2008

While I have great respect and regard for Sec. Rice, I was disappointed with her statement regarding the nation's birth defect. To quote a post at http://racism-america.blogspot.com/ with the title "Blacks Hold Grudge Against Whites":

Sec. of State Condolezza Rice alluded to a resentful attitude held by many people in America who identify themselves as Black toward a group of people they consider White. This resentment also extends to the United States of America according to Rice.

Miss Rice told editors and reporters at The Washington Times that the "United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied blacks the same opportunities as whites when the country was founded.

To quote Miss Rice: "Descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that. That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today."

Unfortunately, Sec. Rice has not transcended race even with the achievement of her high station as an American Citizen in the United States Government. Perhaps even more unfortunate, by her statement, it appears Miss Rice agrees with the rational and resentment articulated in the statement.

Miss Rice???s statement meets some of the essential components to support racism: Simplification, Generalization, and Stereotype.

Miss Rice must know that there were both Black [dark skin people mostly from Africa] and White [light skin people from other parts of the world] who arrived in America as slaves. She must also know that not all Black [dark skin] people who came in the founding period of America were slaves. It is my understanding that the first slave owner at Jamestown [founding America] was Black. Miss Rice must also know that there were Black and White slave owners, and that most of the mainstream people in the founding years of America did not own slaves.

So now all Black people hold resentment and a grudge for something that was done by a minority of diverse people [including Blacks] doing something wrong long ago against what might have been their ancestor [if they were Black slaves, not White slaves]. This is how the simplification, generalization, and stereotype of the Black racist mind can rationalize a guilt on all the light skinned people in America today.

I noticed that Sec. Rice expressed no concern for the unfortunate native Americans that had it all back then and have so little today.

In the Black racist mind, all light skin people today are guilty. The descendents of the poor Irish immigrants who came with no fault or advantage, the Jews escaping the ravages of Nazism, or any number of light skinned people arriving on the shores of America, poor and without any relatives that might should be held responsible for slavery in America's founding years; all are responsible and should be held guilty.

Through Black racist eyes all light skined people are White and all are guilty. Every single White person was given advantages by the Government that were not available to any single Black person.

What Sec. Rice should point to is to individual Freedom. Much so called White blood has been spilled to make Freedom available to all people, light and dark skinned. The Enlightenment movement that began in France, sparking the French Revolution, and influencing our light skinned founding fathers, was and is a predominately White [light skinned people with European decent] movement.

Black racist express no appreciation for the Freedom that mainstream America insisted they have. When the dark skinned man and woman were down with no freedom, it was light skinned people who fought and died for the freedom that the Black racist enjoys today.

Rather than thanks, mainstream America receives only resentment and a grudge from the Black racist. The Black racist sees no progress made by themselves above the average African today.

As a person with native American heritage, to be called by a color is offensive ??? as offensive as the ???N??? word is to some. I am not Red. Ignorant Black racists often refer to me as White and expect me to accept their resentful attitude and grudge. And I am not Brown or Yellow. I am a full Blooded American Citizen [period].

After all that our forbearers have been through individually and together in the persuit of individual Liberty, can we not all simply consider ourselves individual American citizens? Can we now transcend the racism of Black,White, or any skin color?

Is it acceptable for me to consider Miss Rice as simply an American that is born pure from the melting pot?

As a young child I came to my father in distress at being called a half breed by someone at school. My dad pointed out to me that my beloved dog, Skipper, was a sonner. I asked him what a sooner was. He said that Skipper was a mixed breed dog, and that most often mixed breed dogs where smarter and healthier than pure bred dogs.

He then told me that I was a "sooner" like Skipper and that America was a country of sooners. He told me that most people in America were of mixed breed. He said there were no pure breds in America.

Isn???t it time we all admit that we are not pure bred Whites, or pure bred Blacks, or pure bred Browns, or pure bred Yellows. As my dad would put it: can we not admit that we are all American sonners*.

*a dog that would just as soon be this as that

Sent by John | 9:09 PM ET | 03-30-2008

Where are all the feminists who should be backing up Condi? Citing how she must also surely be dealing with sexism and racism? I bet some of these naysayers are Clinton supporters ragging every day about how sexism is bringing Hil down. But no connections for Condi? Not one person commented on the fact that she is a WOMAN!! Racism is dead? Racism is implicated in the negation of a Black woman's femaleness. So let me get this straight, racism is dead but sexism is running strong? Guilt is a dangerous emotion!! White people deal with, its at the basis of everything you do. It's part of the reason were in Iraq, to save the backward barbarians, i.e. non-whites.

Sent by Fran | 9:39 PM ET | 03-30-2008

comparing japanese internment camp victims to the slavery of an entire race, for almost a century, is like comparing a house fire to the holocaust.

Sent by miguel | 10:06 PM ET | 03-30-2008

The racism in some of the comments here merely prove Obama and Rice's points. I never thought I would see the day that I supported anything Rice had to say, but on this I do. I am a (blonde) White woman of Cherokee and German descent and in most ways I see my privilege. I'm also well enough aware of it to realize I cannot see all of it. This is not a difficult concept. However, in realizing my position in society simply based on my genetics I risk feeling guilt. More importantly to most White people, with that awareness comes the risk of losing some of that power and privilege. Because, let's face it, knowing it exists and accepting it increases the guilt! It's much easier to blame those who were not blessed with white skin for their place in the heirarchy. That's far from acceptable, though.

We do have a race problem in this country, just as we do a class problem. I applaud Obama for opening the discussion and Rice for continuing it. Now if only my fellow White brothers and sisters would drop their fear of losing their privilege long enough to listen, we could finally accomplish so much.

Sent by disgusted | 11:46 PM ET | 03-30-2008

'Birth defect' hopefully is a metaphor for a meme - not actually part of our recognizable genome but never-the-less a codon that perhaps has infiltrated into some people's genetic instructions. Plenty of us, have been coded inherently with a sequence otherwise known as 'victim' or 'slave' or 'not good enough' or 'worthless' and we don't have to be any particular color. Ms. Rice is using an interesting term for what is handed down inherently and she may well be right - our DNA contains more than hair, skin or eye color!!

Sent by solihinT | 3:21 AM ET | 03-31-2008

It appears to me that it might be time for ???the Country??? to research the linage of each individual citizen to determine if they had ancestors that were advantaged or disadvantaged by the inequities experienced during the founding years of this country.

The Government could then factor the advantages and disadvantages of each individual citizen by degrees. The government could then determine a means to penalize the advantaged and reward the disadvantaged.

Of course this must be done on an individual basis, it would be impossible to make this determination in any other way.

That way, we can make up past harm to native Americans, Blacks, Irish, and all the people who did not have equal opportunity after they were born or arrived in America during the formative years.

This way we can identify and punish the descendents of the slave owners [of all races] and humiliate them in some manner publicly. Ultimately however, we can use the advantage/disadvantage factor system to determine how much wealth to take away from the individuals who experienced advantages because of the past. ???The Country??? can then distributed the wealth to individuals who had ancestors that experienced disadvantage in the past.

In the meantime, advantaged Americans who feel this privilege and guilt from their ancestors, or are now involved personally with the repression of other Americans because of skin color, can stop, publically admit their problem [as some have admitted here] and begin to make reparations financially and in community service to the disadvantaged.

Perhaps we can form group meeting for these people such as Alcohol Anonymous.

It is essential; however, that we be sure that each individual citizen has equality of life experience from birth. Even today, we have children bore poor while there are children bore rich. ???The Country??? needs to set up a governmental agency to begin to reconcile the advantages as opposed to the disadvantages of all citizens at birth. This way ???the Country??? can make equity and be completely fair to everyone from the beginning.

We might have problems, however, dealing with such disadvantaged dark skinned citizens such as Ophra Winfree and Michael Jordan. If we find that they are disadvantaged by ancestors or some debilitating cultural and social DNA that left a slavery imprint, then making reparations might be difficult.

Considering how much wealth and social status they have achieved being disadvantaged imagine what they could have achieved without that disadvantage. It would be extremely costly to make up to them the wealth they could have made with the disability.

It might also be quite disturbing to the dark skinned poor individual that considers themselves a disadvantaged Black person to find that their ancestor owned a slave themselves. But guilt is guilt, so to be fair this person must be identified and publically reprimanded, along with appropriate reparations made.

Speaking, however, for this American citizen who has native American ancestry and did not have the advantages of most Americans, and who has relatives today who feel that are still devastated by the ???birthing of this nation???, America owes me individually nothing. America gave me the ultimate advantage: individual freedom and liberty as a citizen.

The difference between me and my disadvantaged relatives is simply attitude.

Sent by John | 10:43 AM ET | 03-31-2008

"birth defect" is an excellent choice of words, I think. This may be the first time I've ever had anything complimentary to say about Ms. Rice.

Sent by Dave Anderson | 3:20 PM ET | 03-31-2008

yes, America has to deal with this implied racism that exist today and yes we are all effected by it's past but our country is as evil as any other country - look at all the Blacks who are incarcerated because ignorance on both sides.

Sent by kj | 5:04 PM ET | 03-31-2008

Secretary Rice pointed out a valid criticism. If we cannot be honest about our own History, how can there be any real and meaningful discussion about race in America.
"What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them -- and that's our legacy,"
This is also a valid point that people like Rev. Wright, fail to comprehend or chose to ignore. We as a society have made enormous progress in race relations. Ignoring this fact and calling America the KKK of America and other bigoted comments are short sighted. He has the right to his opinon but he is wrong. I think most Whites are willing to give Blacks an even shake.

Sent by Scott Wilson | 3:54 PM ET | 04-14-2008

I take exception to the internment camp comparisons here. Japanese immigrants, firstly, were WILLING migrants to this country. Secondly, they were never stripped of their "personhood". They were never property. They were not robbed of their language or religion. Most importantly, Asian immigrants have ALWAYS been self-selected. They came seeking opportunity, and they found it...Much like present-day African immigrants, to tend to do VERY well in America. No...the BIRTH DEFECT that Condi mentions is that America's deck was stacked against forced African immigrants. It created a culture of inferiority by legal AND social means. It should come as no surprise that vestiges of that abuse remain.

Sent by Jonathan Queen | 12:56 PM ET | 04-16-2008

I hate this woman she is a warmonger and until now the biggest example how to be colorless in America. Her childhood playmate was one of the four children killed in the Birmingham church bombing, yet she has never said anything about the fact that people of color have never recived full constitutional rights.
Will mainstream America listen to the most powerful woman in the world on race ? I doubt it. If heard the whole audio clip and she is referring to the birth of this nation and the dehumanization and exclusion of African & Native Americans from that so called perfect union. It is sad that a woman who could do so much to change the perception of African Americans and gives so much back to her community is finally saying something about institutions of slavery, segregation and color blind racism. Could it be because her stay in this administration is almost over?

Sent by Sharon Joseph | 7:59 PM ET | 04-24-2008

The true history of slavery in America is as much about black slave owners as white owners. You would think from reading here that there were no free Africans in early America or African slave owners.

The facts are that large numbers of free Negroes owned black slaves; in fact, in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at large. In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According to the U.S. census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slaveholding states.

The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves . Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves).
In the rare instances when the ownership of slaves by free Negroes is acknowledged in the history books, justification centers on the claim that black slave masters were simply individuals who purchased the freedom of a spouse or child from a white slaveholder and had been unable to legally manumit them. Although this did indeed happen at times, it is a misrepresentation of the majority of instances, one which is debunked by records of the period on blacks who owned slaves. These include individuals such as Justus Angel and Mistress L. Horry, of Colleton District, South Carolina, who each owned 84 slaves in 1830. In fact, in 1830 a fourth of the free Negro slave masters in South Carolina owned 10 or more slaves; eight owning 30 or more.

According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country's leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.

To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters.

So, some of the very people who are now blaming innocent light skinned people for slavery in America might actually be dark skinned decedents of black slave owners themselves.

It is time for dark skinned Americans to get over the racial crap and integrate into mainstream American society where skin color carries no blame or guilt.

Sent by John | 10:10 PM ET | 04-29-2008