Speaking of Slavery

What do you do, when you find out that somewhere in your family, they were slave owners, or that someone your deeply connected to, their family were slave owners?

I guess I'm asking this from a more spiritual stance than an ethnically mixed stance.

How do you deal knowing that you are the direct descendant of slave owners?
How do you deal knowing that your best friend or significant other is the direct descendant?

Now, I'm not saying that you or they are bad people. But does that change the way you view your or their families? By families I mean great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents.

Is there some type of karma or energy that gets passed down?

Now, I suppose it is arguable that we all come from lines of violence. If not, how could we be alive? But slavery, in the US is something that was going on not too long ago. To me that feels very fresh in our history even though I didn't experience, nor did my mother.

I don't know. I know it is a touchy subject. I suppose it's just something that I thought about today and am interested in exploring and understanding.