The other day, I received a letter from “Johnny.”

“I have read your article on slavery and the blame for it,” he wrote. “I acknowledge that some branches of my family owned slaves and participated in that institution. I acknowledge that my ancestors fought in the Civil War on the Confederate side. I accept blame for slavery, and I apologize to you and your family for the injustice of African slavery … and for any part my ancestors played in it.

“Now, where do we go from here?

“Will you allow my son to play with your son without his also having to apologize? Is there any other recompense I can offer? How can I help ease your pain?

“…I would be your friend if you let me. But rather than giving me a history lesson, tell me, how do we fix the situation? Where do we go from here?”

Johnny, thank you for writing. Let me, by way of response, offer you a hypothetical scenario: A German guy and a Jewish guy chatting in a Berlin bar. The Jewish fellow says, “My grandfather was a tailor. His shop was on this site. He had a thriving business until the Nazis came to power. They spat on him. They made him wear the yellow star. They broke his windows. And then one day, he disappeared. He and his wife and all his children. Except for my mother, they all died at Auschwitz.”

The German man blanches. “Well,” he says, “the Holocaust was a terrible thing, but remember, some Jews cooperated with the Germans.”

Or, “…but it’s not like that was history’s only genocide.”

Or, “…but it happened before I was born, so don’t blame me.”

Johnny, if you understand why the German sounds defensive — and offensive — then you understand my point about the response of some Americans to the subject of slavery.

Could you and I be friends? Sure, but contrary to what I suspect you believe, you wouldn’t be my first white homeboy. Wouldn’t even be among the first 10. As for our kids playing together, why not?

But Johnny, none of that addresses the issue at hand. The thing you have to realize about slavery is that it will never be “fixed.” Not in our lifetimes, anyway. We may someday overcome its effects, but like the Holocaust, it will always be with us. And it always should. It is a cautionary tale we should never forget. A reminder of what happens when people forget to be truly human beings.

So the question is not how we fix it, but how we face it.

No, that’s not a coded reference to affirmative action, reparations or government apology. Those are important issues and yes, I have opinions about them, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now. I’m also not talking about you apologizing to me. You’ve never done anything to me, so why should you apologize?

What I am talking about is what underlies those things: the simple recognition that we are all shaped and burdened by this history, all obliged to it. So many of my white countrymen never quite get that, are never able to get past the stumbling stone of guilt — whether guilt they feel or guilt they think I’m trying to make them feel.

Johnny, I don’t want their guilt, if only because that which makes you feel guilty inevitably becomes that which you resent. But at the same time I don’t want and surely don’t need them to tell me when, how and how often I am permitted to recall the towering tragedy that defined my people and, indeed, my nation.

My hypothetical German felt attacked by the mere mention of the Holocaust. He instinctively sought to defend himself and ended up sounding like an insensitive boor. Not unlike many of my white countrymen when talk turns to slavery.

I wish they understood what the German did not. That sometimes, the “attack” is only in your mind. That it’s not always about you. That not every silence demands a sound. And that when your brother mourns, there is but one decent thing to do.

Mourn with him.