Battles with Integrity

My grandparents and great-grandparents came here shortly after the turn of last century, sort of midway between when slavery had ended and when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. They were not considered white when they came because they were Southern Europeans. My grandfather told me about being called "nigger lover" by other members of the army while stationed in Iceland during WWII because he spoke up in defense of black people in general. My family is as non-racist as possible within the norms for generations.

Do I think we owe blacks, native americans, chicanos, etc.? Yes, I do. I, a white person in California, have already enjoyed certain benefits of being white that I see non-whites around me fail to receive. Racism is very present, alive, and well in the United States, but since people aren't being lynched regularly or forced to drink from special fountains, we tend to learn about it as something "that happened in the past," or "that is a lot better now," as if we've hit some "good enough" state and are resting on our laurels. It's a dangerous frame of mind. The descendents of Irish immigrants as you mention in your last paragraph were able to improve the lot of their descendents specifically because they could capitalize on being of a higher social status (especially if they moved West) than several other groups included in the United States. They didn't have that option in Ireland.

We all pay a price for slavery. As long as our country persists in (and finds necessary to) classifying people as "Irish-American" or "African-American" or "Native American," we will continue to do so.

As far as the rest - our country is overdeveloped. The countries we've preyed upon are underdeveloped. It's every bit as much the systematic plundering of other lands as any accident of climate or geography, and that's also been going on for ages.