a sense of joy and then a panic

Yeah - it's bad enough when you just think about what's going on now, but when you put it in the context of history it gets really bad. And I get the sense that no one who has any decision-making power puts it in the context of history. I'm sure if anybody brought up what white people have done to the American Indians over the past three hundred years, they would just stick their fingers in their ears and go "la la la."