You're allowed to pick and choose, and indeed should. We can honor and propagate their noble ideas about immigration in general, while rejecting their ideas about race and slavery and all that.
Well sure you can have whatever opinions you want generally and you can reject what your ancestors thought, certainly, you just don’t get to reject meaningful parts of what they thought while simultaneously acting like you are honoring them, that’s bullshit.
They didn’t think their racist views were ignoble. You can’t decide that they were wrong and then feel like you are honoring them by supporting immigration to which they would have been viscerally opposed. You can certainly support that immigration, no problem, but your ancestors would be ashamed of you. If you are okay with that (as am I in many respects), then great, but we can’t pretend you are honoring them by your action in that area. You could be honoring them in other ways in other areas separately, of course.
So if my ancestor was really into feeding the poor, I wouldn’t be honoring them if I fed a poor black person today because they were also racist and wouldn’t have thought that counted?
If your ancestor was against feeding poor black people because they were racist, then yes, absolutely, you wouldn't be honoring them by feeding poor black people.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't feed poor black people, you just can't pat yourself on the back for honoring your ancestor at the same time.
I don't really understand the disagreement. If you are performing an act which, if your ancestor were somehow magically in the room with you, they would respond to with horror and disgust, then you aren't honoring them. Performing your own present morality does not necessarily honor your ancestors, if they had a different morality.
