BlogHer - U.S. house of Representatives Apologizes for Slavery....Anything else you might want to do while you're at it? - Comments

WHAT?

srttracy — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:42:48 -0500

Where in the hell is my sammich?

Thank you for writing about

cutiebootycakes — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:50:03 -0500

Thank you for writing about this Lainad, I heard about it on the radio while driving in the car with my husband and he and I discussed it. The commentator on the radio spoke of the apology and noted that reparations need to be brought into the discussion.

When I hear people discuss the necessity for reparations I understand the arguments but I do not understand how they supporters propose to do it. Slavery ended so long ago and who would ultimately be the beneficiaries? Here in the U.S. we are a melting pot of "black folk." Some with roots in other countries, most with mixed blood. So if indeed reparations become a reality how to distribute them? Do they go to an education fund? A housing fund(40 acres and a mule)? Or would it simply be an exercise to make the collective "us" feel better.

I think that an apology is weak and reparations would cause more harm than good. At this point we all know the devastating impact slavery had on all African people of the diaspora I do not need it to be acknowledged by folks so far removed that it is nonsensical.

Truth and Reconciliation went on while I lived in South Africa and the power behind it for me was that the abused actually were able to look the abusers in the eye. I know that was not a perfect process but I fail to see how something similar would have any effect here in the U.S.

Renée

Cutie Booty Cakes

Thank you Nana

lainad — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:03:43 -0500

Actually, I'm Canadian too and I struggled as whether I should have written a longer post that included the Canadian Government's apology to First Nations people. But you have provided quite a substantial bit of historical information, a lot of info that I certainly wasn't aware of. Thank you very much - your 'rant' is a welcoming addition to my post!

Contributing Editor - Race, Ethnicity & Culture

Writing is Fighting: www.lainad.typepad.com

Apology for Slavery

Nanaredhead — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:42:50 -0500

Hi, recently in Canada our government apologized to our Native people for the way they were treated in the past, being sent off to residential schools where they mostly had their way of life, languages and culture beaten out of them. The schools were mainly run by Religious denominations and many of the children were sexually abused as well as humiliated to the point where they could not function as adults. Reparation has been made in some cases and is continuing. However, no amount of apologizing can give the native peoples back what they have lost and continue to lose.

Your government should have apologized a long time ago for the inhuman act of enslaving a people to work for nothing under terrible conditions of cruelty, too much to go into here, we all know the horrors from our history lessons, or at least we should do, we did in Scotland where I am from. Reparation is too late in coming for those people but reparation and an apology should be made to the people who had to suffer the humiliation of segregation and which is still happening today in perhaps more subtle ways. I was appalled to hear on our CBC radio that in the South mainly, there are still separate grads being held even in mixed schools. Some schools had tried to have mixed events but eventually they reverted to segregated ones again.

But you know, I really think all we can do now is confine history to the past, condemn the mistakes our predecessors made and endeavour not to repeat them and try to help those living in the present to overcome those mistakes. I don't know if the British Government ever apologized for the role they played in the slave trade and the misery and injustice they perpetrated. They ended the trade before the U.S. but not until after a long hard fought battle by abolishers.

There are too many dreadful acts that occurred in the past to be apologized for. If we tried, we would be here all night listing them. The Holocaust, genocides all over the world, slavery, imprisonment, internment, mankind has a lot to answer for and will do some day I'm sure. I think the British government should apologize for the way they treated the Irish during the great Potato famine, the government of the time didn't care, let them starve was their mandate. We Scots are still waiting for an apology for the Highland Clearances when crofters were driven off their land by the Kings men so they could hand it over to their English lords.

Did you know that it was actually the British who invented concentration camps? They built them in South Africa to contain the Boer people during the Boer war, women and children were contained there under dreadful conditions. Of course that was another place the British and Dutch had no business being and the natives there fought against the settlers exactly like the native Indians of America did and who can blame them? Look what a mess Africa is today. Apologies needed there too I think!

The Colonization of countries by the British, American, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Germans, etc. always led to the subduing of whatever native peoples were occupying the land at the time, should we now apologize to all of them and give them their land back? I can't see that happening can you?

Anyway, that's my rant for today!

U.S. house of Representatives Apologizes for Slavery....Anything else you might want to do while you're at it?

lainad — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:22:26 -0500

This past Tuesday the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing for America’s part in slavery and segregation. “Acknowledging the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow” the resolution was a symbol of America’s apology to African-Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors. The resolution also acknowledged that while the apology was sincere, it serves as a “confession of the wrongs committed can speed racial healing and reconciliation and help Americans confront the ghosts of their past.”

Umm, yeah.

Well something is better that nothing, right? Here’s how the presidential candidates have weighed in on a governement apology. From The Daily Voice:

On the presidential campaign, Senator John McCain said last October that he would support a federal apology for slavery, although some critics note that he failed to support the bill when it was discussed in February of this year. For his part, Senator Barack Obama has said he has little interest in an official government apology for slavery or reparations for descendants of slaves, according to the Associated Press. Asked if he would support reparations for Native Americans, Senator Obama said last week that "the more important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds." Although he reportedly noted that by "every socio-economic indicator Native Americans are doing worse" than other Americans, he said he was "more concerned about delivering a better life," according to a report on BlackAmericaWeb.com. Obama added. "The best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people that are unemployed," Obama told an audience at the Unity convention in Chicago.Earlier this year, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution apologizing to Native Americans, and in 1988, Congress passed and President Reagan signed a law apologizing to Japanese-Americans who were held in detention camps during World War II. The 60,000 detainees who were alive at the time each received $20,000 from the government, according to CNN.

As with everything, there are differing views on the legitimacy of the apology, the timing and the most burning questions: What about reparations? From Beautiful, Also, Are The Souls of my Black Sisters:

And why give an apology. . . .and no reparations?

Why give an apology to the Japanese Americans interned in concentration camps during WWII, and $20 million in reparations, but offer no reparations to black Americans whose ancestors suffered the cruelty of American slavery? Why refuse to offer reparations to black Americans whose grandparents, uncles, aunts, mothers and fathers (many of whom are still alive) who suffered through the venomous humiliation of segregation?

Why give $56 million in reparations to the Seminole Tribe, but no reparations to black Americans?

Melissa Harris -Lacewell, a professor at Princeton University ad co-author at The Kitchen Table is giving the apology the side-eye (Sorry, I love that sayingJ)

Let's just say I am not taking the apology very graciously.

Apology is critical to a process of reconciliation. No healing can begin without acknowledging the depth of the wrong that has been done. Here is my problem with this apology. It states that "slavery and Jim Crow are stains upon what is the greatest nation on earth and the greatest government ever conceived by man." While I appreciate the effort Representative Cohen, that just does not even come close to capturing it……..To apologize is to grapple with the painful truth, to be able to articulate the position of the person whom you wronged, and to stand ready to make reparations for the wrong you have done. Tuesday's vote was a nice gesture. It is much better than ignoring slavery, but it is not the apology I am looking for from a government that benefited so much from the agony of so many.

Leutisha Stills from Jack and Jill Politics looks at, among other things, the reasoning why Rep. Steve Cohen, who is white and Jewish, introduced the non binding resolution at this particular time. Besides representing a predominately black district in Memphis, Tennessee, he is up for re-election and is campaigning against a young African-American woman, Attorney Nikki Tinker. Could this be a political ploy to gain him more votes from his constituents? Leutisha, who blogs under the moniker The Christian Progressive Liberal sees it a bit differently (and is a bit biased):

While it may seem to be a gesture, the fact that Mr. Cohen’s district is more than 60% African-American; plus the fact that the 9th district has seen better and more effective representation than it saw under 32 years of the seat being held by a man named Ford, is significant. Significant in that the people of Memphis finally have a voice that truly represents their interests, and one of those interests is an apology for slavery.

However, there are a select few in Congress who would like to see Mr. Cohen gone. Because he’s a white Jew. And that charge is being led by super corrupt Black Pastors in Memphis, who would rather see a Black Face in that seat, even though the Black Face is nothing more than a Corporate Mammy who imported herself to Memphis on the Dark Sith’s coattails. The Dark Sith is not above using his marriage to funnel campaign donations to the Corporate Mammy, either - through his wife.

Black Agenda Report does not go around endorsing candidates for public office, but we made an exception for Steve Cohen and Dennis Kucinich. Because they are progressives in every sense of the word. So, we at JJP are asking you to urge your representatives in Congress to support H. Res 194 - the formal apology for slavery. Second, if you or your family live in Memphis, urge them to support this man’s return to his Congressional seat because he’s an effective congressman who’s keeping his campaign promise to the people that elected him - the formal apology for slavery.

On a side note, John McCain, who can’t tell the difference between Affirmative Action and Quotas, supports the Affirmative Action ban in Arizona. So is an apology really enough?