As America is struggling with its own racist past, and present, it makes sense to examine what the Germans have done with their own. For the past 70 years, many Germans have been engaged in what they call Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung - working-off the past. Though the process has been slow, fitful, and often problematic, Americans can learn from the ways in which Germany has - partially - confronted its racist past, as we begin to examine our own.