&gt; Imagine what it is like to be black in a country where just a few generations back you carried at all times in mixed-race race situations the possibility of being assaulted without recourse or lynched, or in present times accused and convicted of a crime you didn&#x27;t commit or shot on sight for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.<p>&gt; Imagine what it is like to be Jewish and have 85% of your relatives systematically wiped out in living memory.<p>I think you&#x27;re taking a devils advocate position here, but this is interesting if true. I&#x27;m not sure how the actions of people 60-80 years ago should affect how we view ~20-year-olds today? For example, how is the behaviour of white germans in 1945 related to white americans or british in either 1945 or 2015? I think we were on the opposite side of that war.<p>As for black lynchings in the american south, again this is a localised issue. But lets say your university is in an area where it happened, how likely is it that someones grandfather was involved in a lynching? Pretty small. But even if they were, should someone today be associated with their grandparents criminal behavior? I don&#x27;t see how.