There is another movement in the United States Congress to apologize for slavery in this country, that last I checked ended in the 1860’s .
Why? Because politically words are a lot better than actions and makes those who sponsor such divisive, yes, I said divisive bills, feel a little more caring than those who are already past that trivial moment. Check me if I’m wrong on this, but shouldn’t an apology be made to those who have been wronged? If there are any slaves yet today, I would hope that our government would apologize to them. Problem is , there are not. Have you noticed anyone lately spurring this conversation by suggesting that slavery was a darn good thing, and heck Goober, why don’t we re-instate it. Haven’t heard it either.
Was there a time we apologized to those of color we had wronged?Hmm. Let’s check and see if that apology came in the form of action which in my book, was much more powerful. How about if we start with the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves while in the midst of a civil war fought at least in part over the rightness or wrongness of slavery. A big reparation was paid in terms of lives spent there.
Move ahead to the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments put together specifically to grant rights denied. In 1964, the U.S. Congress passed a Civil Rights Bill which made sure we enforced the application of those rights, and Brown vs. the Board of Education in the 1950’s said “separate but equal” would not go in this country. Does that not constitute an apology through continued and sustained action?
If there is an apology owed, it should be from a politically- motivated Congress which continues to divide while the rest of us want to unify. I’m Gary Sutton.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Apologizing for slavery
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6 comments:
Those that don't support the congressional apology are caught between a rock and hard place.
Suppose this thing is written up and comes before the floor. Now you have the option of signing it or refusing to do it.
What would you do? Just sign the thing and forget about it, or have your name splattered all over the place as someone who refused to do it.
Gary,
I haven't heard of this recently. Would you update your post with a link to the proposed legislation, co-sponsors, etc? I'm being quite serious. I know I don't always take that tone here, but in this case I would like to see where this is coming from. Thanks!
I suspect that this is an issue that came up with a campaign in Australia to apologize for the Stolen Generation.
You can learn a little more about the issue in the wiki article linked above.
Here's two articles from The Australian from two different perspectives:
Don't let facts spoil the day
Don't let facts spoil this campaign
Reparations for past actions when a long time has passed are difficult to defend, difficult to advocate.
Apologies don't require any reparations, so, as talk goes, apologies are cheap.
It shouldn't be that big a deal to say "sorry" for something our ancestors did to someone else's ancestors.
But it is a completely different animal when something vital was taken from them, and not restored.
The Native People here are one such example: 262 treaties by the Federal Government were broken by the FG to those people, and many of those treaties involved territory.
I am sorry, but when the ancestors of those people demand accountability from the government, I side with the native people.
The government acted irresponsibly and illegally in breaking treaties without any recourse to fairness for the tribes. If that means giving back Montana or Wyoming to the native people, so be it.
Reparations for slavery are even more difficult to conceive. In the case of 5 Bostonians who were wrongfully sent to prison for 30 years for a crime they didn't commit, they or their families were awarded a total of $105 million. The government is appealing it. How much is a life worth???
Broken families are broken families that can't be glued back together when they were torn apart by slavery. "If you break it, you pay for it" maybe still applies. . .
I know one thing: the rich white men have controlled this country since Day 1. They do not want to acknowledge what it is they do when it is harmful to others, and they essentially make their fortunes and maintain their power at the expense of others.
We do not have a democracy.
We do not have a democratic republic.
We have an oligarchic plutocracy.
Today's slaves are not visibly chained, but they are slave labor all the same. And this applies internationally, not just here.
Gary,
I am not at all convinced on that "while the rest of us want to unify" statement. Just take a look at current blogs on the Internet , talk shows, TV shows, even the current political races and tell me that with a straight face.
You certainly see it a lot differently than I do.
reality_based,
The proposed legislation is coming in March regarding the "apology." I decided to attach the article that was the basis of my original post on this subject. It has the proposed sponsors and some of the co-sponsors listed. Tom Harkin and Sam Brownback are two of the senators involved. The article is as follows:
Legislators to push for U.S. apology for slavery
Lawmakers want government to follow five states' example
By Wendy Koch
USA TODAY
Five states did something over the past 12 months that no state had done before: expressed regret or apologized for slavery.
This year, Congress, which meets in a Capitol built partly by slaves, will consider issuing its own apology.
"We've seen states step forward on this," says Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, citing the resolutions of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama and New Jersey. "I'm really shocked, just shocked" that the federal government hasn't apologized. "It's time to do so."
Harkin says he and Sen. Sam Brownback R-Kan., will propose as early as March an apology not only for slavery but for subsequent "Jim Crow" laws that furthered racial segregation. So far, they have 14 Senate backers, including Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. A similar House measure introduced last year has 120 co-sponsors.
"I think 2008 will be the year," says Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. He says an apology could begin a dialogue about race that Obama could continue as the nation's first black president.
"The success of the Obama candidacy underscores the irrelevance of an apology" because it shows "enormous progress" in race relations, says Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative group that describes itself as opposed to racial preferences. "Haven't we already moved beyond it?"
Congress has apologized before, but not for slavery.
It apologized to Japanese-Americans in 1988 for holding them in camps during World War II and gave each survivor $20,000. In 1993, Congress apologized to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of their kingdom a century earlier. In 2005, the Senate apologized for not enacting anti-lynching legislation.
The Senate has no record of any prior effort to apologize for slavery. In the House of Representatives, Tony Hall, an Ohio Democrat, proposed one in 1997, and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has tried since 1989 to pass a bill that would create a commission to study slavery's impact and possible remedies, including reparations, which can be cash payments.
Apologies are controversial because of concern they could lead to reparations.
They "carry weight" as a step toward racial healing and don't have to "open the door" to reparations, says Carol Swain, professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University.
Other proponents say an apology should lead to remedies.
"A mere apology doesn't do anything for me," says state Rep. Talibdin El-Amin, a Democrat who is lobbying for such a resolution in Missouri.
An apology is a necessary first step because it recognizes a wrongdoing, says Hilary Shelton of the NAACP.
He says it's "hollow," though, unless it leads to a remedy for African-Americans, who still suffer economically and educationally from the aftereffects of slavery and segregation.
Remedies don't have to be monetary payments but could be government programs to help the disadvantaged, Cohen says.
An apology is counterproductive, Clegg says. "It taps into white guilt and helps perpetuate social programs the civil rights establishment likes, such as racial preferences and ultimately reparations," he says.
Clegg says that an apology serves "no legitimate purpose since the villains and victims are long since deceased" and that such an action could instead be divisive and "keep racial wounds alive."
The state apologies have not given a boost to the reparations movement, says Ronald Walters, author of a book titled The Price of Racial Reconciliation.
Last February, Virginia became the first state to issue a form of apology, expressing "profound regret," as did Maryland lawmakers a month later. The three states that followed expressed regret and apologized.
Alabama and New Jersey added language saying the apology cannot be used to sue the state.
The House proposal does not include such a disclaimer, but the Senate one does, saying its apology cannot be the basis for claims against the United States.
Harkin says his proposal does not address reparations.
"We're just apologizing," he says. "You can't undo the past, but you can recognize a wrong was done."
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