While many people feel Guantanamo, the secretive prisons, torture of people rendered to other countries because they do torture and all of the other war crimes being committed by this administration against individuals, citizens or not, are horrific, they pale in comparison to the slave ships and slavery in general back then and today. Corporations in existence today who made their fortunes back then connected to the slave trade, and political parties which hamper the full reparations and reintegration back into society should have their names published upon a list to be shunned. Personally, I'd prefer their fortunes to be hunted down even to today's shareholders and confiscation performed. Their combined fortunes should be delivered to the heirs of those forced to undergo the brutalities and murder of slavery. If this is done, others would take note that enslavement over whatever period of any individual will cost them whatever profit they may make today, and then some even down through generations. While this would seem extreme, consider that the wealthy make sure debt is passed down through generations upon the poor, enslaving them through generations in many parts of the world. The wealthy see nothing wrong with this. Of course, they would object to a fair and just adjustment which might place them in the same predicament as inflicted upon those they enslaved.
The part of me born into Southern whitehood never took because as a child I saw people for their humanity, not the color of their skin. I saw cultures as different, not good or bad. I saw purposeful wounding of another either socially or physically as wrong. Love was good, no matter where it came from or the color of anyones skin who showed it. I stood up as soon as I could to intolerance and injustices. While I was spared the harshness of retaliations metered out to nonwhites, that is not to say my actions didn't draw a response from those in power.
Inside of my genetic family today, there exists this "fear" of retaliation and racism. And, while I left as soon as possible, only a return visit need remind me of the societal scarring and open wounds left in the wake of slavery.
Denial of whites that they "have a problem" halts their being able to address other's humanness. Lessening or keeping a full education from others because of cultural or skin color says more about your fear than about their capabilities. What can it say about them? Well, just the fact that they don't get organized and arm themselves, and attack you for denial of basic things you take for granted says quite a lot about their character and perseverance.
Any people hate generational debt. When you combine that with a certain race and a particular country, or even a sector of a country, it is amplified because those owed and those that owe see each other all of the time. In Georgia, there are still "white towns and black towns" in the back waters of the state. The same is true for other southern states. When public schools were forced to integrate, whites sent their kids to religious schools and charter schools instead of seeing that the public schools served all equally. Education funding went down through state government still controlled by the whites. The political party of Lincoln, sinking in popularity, appealed to these types of white people who went to church and set up their "religious schools" to escape the changes to the Law. Now, they occupy the federal government and have taken the white sheet of conservativism to cover up and serve as a cloak of respectablilty. They are still the fear mongering, corrupt politicians of the past who wore the cloak of the Democrates who dominate the South. They are still the people who make sure that people of color don't get to vote or the votes are never counted.
Until the debt is paid, the playing field is not level. The white fear is that if impoverishment comes to them if the debt is paid, those holding the upper hand will not be fair.
First of all, there are many kinds of debts. Let's look at social debt. If you are a white person, how do you treat a person that's nonwhite? Why can't you treat them as you would another white person? Can't you understand that showing kindness and fairness to all elevates you in the eyes of all? You profit socially. Those that you treat in this manner will take you as an individual instead of just another "white" person. And, if you make this the acceptable manner of other white friends, you go the distance of paying a debt owed. Just this step takes courage.

Don't blame the "white" population for the sins of a few wealthy whites back then, or the sins of a few wealthy whites (and non-whites) now. Place the blame on those who participated. My ancestors were still in Austria-Hungary until after 1910, so were not likely to be culpable for the slavery outrage. They were lower-class peasants, and emigrated to escape conditions that, while not as bad as slavery, were no picnic either. They worked their way up the scale to where I am able to live a decent life (far from wealthy, but not in poverty, either) in spite of the inequities of the economic system. I would like to get some of the wealth of the oppressors passed around to me, as well as those whose ancestors suffered much worse than mine did, but I am not going to cry because it won't happen.

Dr. Raphael discusses the central role of the Jews in the New World commerce and the African slave trade. The following passages are from Rabbi Marc Lee Raphael's book Jews and Judaism in the United States , pp. 14, 23-25.
"Jews also took an active part in the Dutch colonial slave trade; indeed, the bylaws of the Recife and Mauricia congregations (1648) included an imposta (Jewish tax) of five soldos for each Negro slave a Brazilian Jew purchased from the West Indies Company. Slave auctions were postponed if they fell on a Jewish holiday. In Curacao in the seventeenth century, as well as in the British colonies of Barbados and Jamaica in the eighteenth century, Jewish merchants played a major role in the slave trade. In fact, in all the American colonies, whether French (Martinique), British, or Dutch, Jewish merchants frequently dominated.”

"This was no less true on the North American mainland, where during the eighteenth century Jews participated in the 'triangular trade' that brought slaves from Africa to the West Indies and there exchanged them for molasses, which in turn was taken to New England and converted into rum for sale in Africa. Isaac Da Costa of Charleston in the 1750's, David Franks of Philadelphia in the 1760's, and Aaron Lopez of Newport in the late 1760's and early 1770's dominated Jewish slave trading on the American continent." E.g. Judah P. Benjamin - Secretary of State - US Confederacy