This is a reply to the letter "Time to pay up for sins of slavery" (Aug. 26). The writer puts the entire blame of slavery on the white race and suggests that the involved governments pay reparations to the African-American community. The writer should look a little further into this subject. If he did, he would find that the African slave trade was possible because Africans roamed far and wide to capture other Africans of other tribes to bring to the coast to be sold/traded to whites (mostly Dutch ship owners). Whites did not travel through the jungles to capture slaves. The captured slaves were kidnapped by their own people and sold/traded to whites. The writer would now like the government to pay reparations. I and everybody else is the government. It is my money you ask for. I will pay for reparations as soon as the African tribes who brought the slaves out of the jungles pay their fair share. Meanwhile, I am researching my English ancestry because I know the Romans took land from my family, and I want Italy to pay me reparations, too.

Robert Bromley

Griswold