It was not a shining moment for us as a people.

I think like most things, our position history in the slave trade is nuanced by a very relative power structure -- one that was more rigid in the Old World than the New. In North America and the Caribbean, we were far more emancipated, and were allowed in many cases (prior to the great waves of immigration in late 19th/early 20th centuries) to assimilate, especially in the South... which is interesting and ironic given how the South is viewed as this intolerant backwater even today. That privilege clearly impacted our presence and role in chattel slavery, which was considered acceptable, and created a kind of padding for us -- we were no longer the lowest on the totem pole, why not indulge a little? Everyone else is doing it.

And that doesn't negate later waves of socialists, abolitionists, racists, progressives, and everything in between. It's just due diligence. Our claws are not completely clean.