Lawmakers to push for U.S. apology for slavery

[Woodmonkey]

Lawmakers to push for U.S. apology for slavery


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 and cash payments.

Apologies are controversial because 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 new 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."

The Source

[SherryGrace]

My family didn't own slaves...so they can exclude us from the apology.

[Snowden]

My family did own slaves, but you can exclude me from the apology as well. I didn't own them, and apologizing for what my ancestors did is ridiculous. Slavery should never have existed in this country, but it did. If my ancestors had not owned slaves, they could have been worse off. As is, they were educated and given papers so they were free. They were allowed to go North if they wished, to set up homes and just be free. Some did that; others preferred to hold jobs at the Manor where they felt at home. Those were given an acre and a cabin, along with what animals they needed, etc., and a job.

I also refuse to apologize because to do because all that does is open the door for "compensation," which was offered and accepted as I've set above.

I do not owe any of them an apology. Those who rejected the training and freedom were taken care of by their owner. Repulsive? It was done; even in the Bible we see that slavery has always been a fact of life, deplorable or not. It's only very recently that slavery was reportedly outlawed in Saudi -- where women are still enslaved simply for being women. That goes on in places all over the world. Better we apologize to them and try to find a way to free them than to apologize for something long since abolished in this nation.

The descendants of those slaves held here have freedom. Many have made themselves respectable citizens; people you would never think of as ever having ancestors who were enslaved. Others live without hope because it's easier than getting a job -- and those who do that are not all descended from slaves, nor are they all of any one race.

People are greatly responsible for their own lives in this country, and that's been so since we became a nation.

No apology here; neither called for nor given.

[leobold1]

What about every state admitted to the union from Nebraska to Hawaii? None of these states even had a CHANCE to become slave states, as they were all admitted after 1865.

14 States, over 1/4 of the nation, WASN'T a nation when slavery was abolished.

Blacks have been polarized over this for years. Some want an apology and reparations, some just want an apology, and some think both are stupid.

[redtanker]

there is NO need for me or anyone else to submit an apolgy. As others have stated in this thread, I was not alive and no one alive today had anythng to the situation.
I will never apologize for something i had ZERO control over.
Not going to happen!

[Woodmonkey]

Nothing good came out of slavery and people were not better off for being slaves. There is no justification for slavery.