Um, yes, they actually actively participated in the case of my family. Actually owned human beings. Others who didn’t still went along with the system. That was most all whites did. It’s not really arguable. The abolitionist movement was always a minority movement. I did have Quaker family members who were abolitionists though.

Passive consent is anything other than ardent abolition. White people who were here at that time and did not actively seek the abolition of enslavement were consenting to that system.

As for slavery elsewhere, why do people like you always try and shift the subject to the evil of others, when the issue for us as Americans is dealing with OUR mess? It’s a silly pivot. It’s like breaking a window playing ball as a kid, and when your mom punishes you, responding “But Billy was playing ball too!” As I recall, my mom said something about whether or not I would follow Billy off a bridge were he inclined to jump. In other words, the fact that other people do bad things doesn’t mean you don’t have to take ownership of your own — in this case the things that elevated some in this country and marginalized others. Americans love to bask in the glory of the past, but we just don’t want to address or be responsible for the ugliness. That’s not how it works