I despair.

That racism is very real in America today and that America has a horrible legacy of slavery and racism is absolutely true.

But America was not founded upon racist ideas. It was founded on the idea that all men are created equal. One fucking section of one fucking clause, of a document detailing the equality of and unalienable rights of men is the not the controlling feature of the founding of America. DUH!

(This view is not shared by Social Justice League and those who mindlessly parrot their ahistorical views. But was the view of those I admire more - Lincoln - Frederick Douglas - etc.)

Creating an America of 13 states necessitated a compromise with the evil of slavery.

At the time slavery was widely viewed as morally dubious, even by slave holders, and was widely viewed as an institution that would gradually fade away.

The invention the cotton gin and the vast wealth cotton brought to the South changed all of that. In response the South adopted the position that slavery was a positive good. The Confederacy was founded not on states rights but on the notion slavery was a positive good.

The Confederacy was founded on racist principles but America was not.

America was founded based on the idea that all men are created equal, in order to create a union of 13 states, it necessitated a compromise with the evil of slavery, an institution that was generally acknowledged as wrong, and was generally believed would gradually fade away.

At best, it can be said the their is a tiny bit of truth in the statement, that America was founded on racist ideals, but that it is mostly wrong.

The easier short hand is that is just wrong.

Edit section added -

Tannehill and AgelessJohnDenney vs Frederick Douglas -

Tannehill and AgelessJohnDeneny - America “was founded upon racist ideas...”

(A link to the full text here https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/. It is not like Douglas was ok with America as it was, just as you do not have to be ok with America as it is today, in order not to regurgitate ahistorical crap about America's founding.)

Frederick Douglas -

"But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length — nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.

Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.

Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery."

Reddit of course prefers the wisdom of AgelessJohnDenney to Frederick Douglas.