When can our society progress as one?

Ok, first off, I don't want to offend anyone, but I do want to know the opinions of others to better educate myself.

I live in the south and for as long as I can remember, the south is known for the civil rights movement. I know the history of our...

country, including slavery. What I don't understand is, when will it be enough? What I mean by that is, slavery ended a very long time ago and yes I agree that it took to long to stop segregation, but none the less its over. Where I am from, black people have a far better chance of reveiving a good education, help from the government and so on, than a white person. Now the state has to apologize for slavery and all white people are the enemy. Well my skin is white, but my ancestors had nothing to do with slavery, so I don't understand why I am supposed to apologize and pay the decendants of slaves. My family is made up of american indian(which were basically slaughtered), italian, and cuban. Don't get me wrong, I think slavery was a horrible act. But I also think that looking at how black people are treated in africa now, is it not a good thing to be in the usa now?

When will enough be enough? When can we all start taking responsibility for ourselves? When can we as humans go forward?

Another thing is that some friends of mine had to do a project in college, we did research on 20 black people. Out of those 20, only 6 had ancestors that were actually from africa. Some were from jamaica, barbados and other places. So why are 99% of the black people calling themselves african-american. If you were born in america are you not an american regardless of your race? It would sound anti-patriotic if I were to refer to myself as an american-indian-italian-cuban american. Why can't we just be american? Why can't we just be people?

Please keep in mind I am speaking from my area. There are young black people that drive around in new lincoln navigators and escalades, but they do not have a job and live in a run down shack, are on food stamps, and afdc. We have job opportunites available at several manufacturers. How do you buy all of that without a job?

When can we celebrate being american people? When can we move forward?

My public policy class just debated the length of affirmative action as required as reparations and equality pushers, etc. It's hard to pinpoint how or when equality efforts will be enough. In terms of reparations, I mean...I personally think that it will never be enough or long enough. Sandra Day O'Connor attempted to put a timespan on how long affirmative actions should be upheld (30 years is what she said) until it is enough. But with the conservative court right now, they may begin reversing some decisions sooner rather than later.