Well, I'm glad this thread has calmed down a bit. I was going to jump in and add to the discussion earlier and after my first post, but I waited for everything to cool off.
Anyways, on the topic of slavery: I know that what the African Americans went through was and probably still is horrible (discrimination-wise). And I hope I don't offend any of them by saying this, but black people aren't the only race who has been stuck in slavery. I looked it up online and, if my sources are correct, then the truth is that many other people have been enslaved in ancient history(as most of you already know). Ukrainians, Circassians, Russians, Belarusians, Poles, and Jews were enslaved by the Crimean Khanate. During the Tang Dynasty, Chinese people captured Koreans to sell them. People in Thailand and Burma owned slaves. There were slaves in Greece, too, as well as Rome; they enslaved Greeks, Berbers, Germans, Britons, Slavs, Thracians, Gauls (or Celts), and Arabs. Celtic tribes in Europe owned slaves. The vikings enslaved Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Celts, as well as some evidence of German slaves, and Latin slaves. The Ancient Egyptians practiced slavery, too.
Basically, every single race has been enslaved by another. I know that slavery in America was absolutely horrible and the way a lot of slaves were treated was horrible, too, but the way the topic of slavery is handled/talked about in this country makes it seem as if Americans were the only people to ever enslave others and thus makes them worse than every other country in the world, when most other countries have done it themselves.
What I don't understand is why we need Black History Month or LGTB Pride Month when we should, as someone else in the thread mentioned, forget our differences and come to accept that, despite our different ways of thinking and feeling and living and the way we look, we belong in only one category: Human. Forget white, black, red, yellow, gay, or straight. Human. That's the idea we need to focus on.
Besides, most people in the world have mixed blood. Take me for example; I'm a huge mix of European (including German, Swedish, Scottish, Spanish, Russian, English, Manx, etc.... I also have Ojibwe, Blackfoot, Mi'kmaq, Sioux, and Algonquin (Native American and Canadian tribes) blood. I also found out recently that I have a little bit of Middle Eastern blood in me, too (but it's so little that I don't even really consider myself Middle Eastern).
Another point I want to make is that we really shouldn't be so hateful to our own country (or to America, if you don't live here). I know that American people in the past have done horrible things, but we should learn what we did wrong, fix it, and then move on. We've fixed the African American slavery problem. We've fixed the legal segregation (stuff such as blacks having to sit in the back of a bus or stay in a black-only hotel, etc...) problem.
What I wish is for us to forget the past and start trying to build a better future where everyone can be who they are without discrimination. Separating us into different months or different contests or different whatevers isn't going to help, and neither is focusing on beating ourselves up while we should be respectfully laying those matters to rest and making America a better place.