The U.S. House of Representatives is poised to follow in the footsteps of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Alabama, and Florida, and apologize for America’s past devotion to its peculiar institution and Jim Crow.
It will be the first federal resolution apologizing for slavery.
CitizenGeek
I think it’s about time the US did something like this!
Gregoire
Countdown to some racist rant from Churchill-y is 5, 4, 3…
Tom
Not sure what this has to do with being queer, but I guess it means “white guilt” is over and people don’t have to feel obligated to vote for the “Black Massah”, er I mean, Messiah.
Jaroslaw
I belonged to a Black group, a women’s group no less when I was 17. I was helping out “mama” with her charity work and when they found out I was doing all the typing etc. they told me there was no restriction on a White person joining. I agreed with the goals – help historic Black Institutions (museums, etc.) in the city and college scholarship aid. So I’m hardly racist.
But to my way of thinking, these apologies are worthless, decades overdue and don’t accomplish anything. And I’m not sure that I can apologize (or take credit for that matter) for something my ancestors several generations back – did. Well, mine are from Poland so we didn’t contribute to the slave thing at all in the U.S.
Anyway, Let’s do some real work to rid the country of racism (improve ALL the schools, get everyone clean places to live, and health insurance promote equitable hiring – is there a way to hire people for other jobs the way they hire for the symphony – people audition behind a curtain. No one knows if they are male or female or which race…
Feel good platitudes such as this cost absolutely NOTHING.
crazylove
I couldn’t agree more with Jaroslaw’s post. I am black, and this apology means shit to me. What means something is a healthcare system that works and is affordable, an educational system that’s not increasing in cost at double the rate of inflation per year, an energy system that doesn’t penalize the poor, environmental issues that make sure that black people aren’t getting sick at a higher and higher rates, my cousin out of Iraq, and on and on.
travis
I can’t help think this is beyond pathetic. Unless
you can build a time machine that will bring the slave owners to the future so they can apologize i don’t see what this is going to accomplish. I’m not apologizing for something that happened 200 years ago.
fri
Tom, not sure what this has to do with being queer? Did it ever occur to you that [gasp] a lot of people are both queer AND black? i’m not sure what the posts about madonna gossip have to do with being queer personally…
fri
Jaroslaw,
it doesnt matter that your ancestors came from poland and didnt own slaves. the fact of the matter is that you still receive privileges due to the fact that you’re white. and this privilege is a legacy of slavery and jim crow. it’s not your fault obviously, but you should just learn to accept that this is the reality. obviously volunteering for a black organization doesn’t change this either.
but i agree that apologies dont matter. however i think what we DO need are reparations, not ignoring that racism no longer exists.
Ted B. (Charging Rhino)
No apoligies and no reparations needed or required. Any moral debt was paid-in-full by the blood of Union troops, and in the lives of the civilians lost on both-sides.
JP
Cool, thank you out of touch States! I’ve been waiting. I hope the whole gay thing won’t take another 200 years.
hell's kitchen guy
The US has a great way of closing the barn door after the animals are out: apologizing for genocide of Indians, internment of Japanese, Tuskagee Experiment, etc.
CitizenGeek
I know this won’t accomplish anything practical, but I still think it’s incredibly important symbolically. This House is the same House that supported and mandated slavery at one stage in it’s history; apologising for that is important. And I’m not a guilty white or anything, not at all.
ron
F_uck these stupid apologies. Our ancestors passed laws that reflected their values and knowledge at the time. I am not liable foe the actions of people who died decades before I was conceived. Slavery was the best thing to happen to the American negro, otherwise they would still be in Africa.
emb
Hell’s Kitchen Guy, that’s really the very bestest of apologies, you know: First you do the Bad Thing and profit immensely from it (slavery, genocide, internment, etc.) and then abjectly say how very very sorry you are and isn’t everything all better now let’s move on. It’s worked in the past quite nicely.
ChristopherM
Ron, I was wondering if you were misled or just stupid. Then you used “American negro.” Question answered.
CHURCHILL-Y
@ No. 6 · Travis :
Thank you couln’t have written it better myself.
Good to see common sense people have not been driven out completely from this blog.
CHURCHILL-Y
> couldn’t <
Mr C
I don’t think the apology is necessary at this point our Country is filled with so much hate on all sides it smothers all of LOVE that some have.
The only apologies should be from a lot of our ancestors, Parents and leaders who encouraged and taught HATE all these years (some not all). Let’s keep it real HATE is taught not bred.
If you put a Black, White, Latino, Asian kids in a playground they will play all day and love each other UNCONDITIONALLY. Too bad grown folks can’t do that.
Here’s an example of taught HATE Churchill-Y said in another post on here: Now I’m all for blacks hating their own black gay brother, sisters, sons etc.
Now just think we Gays want hetero’s or rather (Blacks because you know according to Churchshit and others we’re the only folks who HATE gays)anyway we want them to stop the hatred of us (gays)and you have this god-forsaken fag saying shit like that.
Sounds hypocritical to me…what about you?
The nerve to talk about common sense people
Endymnion
Who Brought The Slaves To America?
Surely THEY should be the ones to apologize!
http://rense.com/general81/d3ss.htm
FASCINATING!!!
hells kitchen guy
^^^^ Oh great, a gay anti-Semite (eye roll).
ousslander
If people want to apoligize for something so long ago fine with me but reparations, hell no. Affirmitive action, welfare and whole host of other programs made up for that.
Endymnion
21 · hells kitchen guy
^^^^ Oh great, a gay anti-Semite (eye roll).
———–
BUT IS IT TRUE?
Re anti-Semite: None of the people involved were Semites, their names all point to Khazars from today’s Kazakhstan who’s state religion is still today Judaism!
The Ashkenazim (Jews of German decent – originally from Kazakhstan) and Sephardi (Jews of Spanish decent – originally from Kazakhstan) converted to Judaism about 700 AD before leaving Kazakhstan!
So the slave trader Jews were not and are not Semites, neither are they related to the Jews of the bible! They are as as much Semites as the Germans who converted to Christianity!
Neither of them has a right to kick the Palestinians out of their Palestine for example, because it NEVER belonged to either of them!
They NEVER lived there!
Check out their history, it’s fun and FULL of (NASTY) surprises!
So I’m not an anti-Semitic gay guy (eye roll), but a well informed one to whom TRUTH matters above anything else.
emb
“a well informed one to whom TRUTH matters above anything else.”
Uh huh. Especially if the “truth” involves wicked conspiracies by Evil Jews, I bet. Don’t let the UN’s secret helicopter army knock off your tinfoil hat on the way out, hon.
Giovanni
The offical apology/acknowledgement is long over due (to put it mildly). I welcome it and hope it turns into a national day of mourning and/or reflection. Reparations are too divisive and no longer possible though some sort of education fund would be just.
CHURCHILL-Y
“though some sort of education fund would be just.”
There you have it. The next step some sort or handouts. Maybe it should be rephrased to something like:
calling them Reparations is too divisive so we need to find a new name for it “education fund”.
Afroguapo
I don’t understand why these apologies get some people in a tizzy. We’ve apologized to the Japanese for their internment, the Japanese have acknowledged and apologized for the sex slave trade/concubine society imposed on Chinese women, Germans for unconscionable atrocities against the Jews, etc. and in all of these instances the actual culprits are deceased and apologies given by the relevant reigning government for either having been complicit in the past or not doing anything about it. I don’t see how this is to exact or stoke “white guilt” as no one is saying white people should feel guilty. If this apology engenders such anger in some of you or that you’re “being made to apologize for something [you] didn’t do”, that is your sole issue to work out and analyze. And for the one who said, “well, they would still be in Africa” check out the works of Ivan Van Sertima and Walter Rodney to have a more informed and nuanced view. http://www.amazon.com/Europe-Underdeveloped-Africa-Walter-Rodney/dp/0882580965
tallskin
LOL, blaming the jews now for slavery! No doubt it was also those damned freemasons as well. Or how about some loon proposing the cat
But no-one on here has mentioned the african ruling class selling their own people into slavery (the lot that are doing so well around the world now) or the muslims who developed the trade internally within africa –
Whereas us whities merely docked our ships at the ports around the coast and paid africans and arabs for the slaves.
Are not apologies due from them as well?????
CHURCHILL-Y
Not only that Tallskin but they also fail to mention that even though whites were not the ones who started it outside of Africa( that honor goes to the camels as you so well stated it) but how also it was they British who put an end to it by patrolling the African coast, but you’re not going to hear any peep from them concerning that.
Trenton
Lord…
1) Even if the apology accomplishes nothing material and even if the people apologizing weren’t directlyrelated to the original slave-institution, it is still an institutional apology from a the same governing body, and some people, especially elder indidviduals who may have even been alive during times of segregation, may take some solace from it. This apology is more for them than for anyone, I think.
2) Reparations are out of the question. It would be a slap in the face to some and a wasteful expense on others. The few that would use this material compensation (a concept which has no real grounding in any from of Humanism, only greed and entitlement) will manage without it. Above all, the cost of creatikng and organizing and running an infrastructure for the task would be enormous, and we can better spend the money elsewhere rather than on a single demographic. Anyone who calls for reparations from the government truly is ignorant of the difficulties and costs that it would entail.
3) Racism OBVIOUSLY still exists, and while it will never sink in to most people, these sorts of apologies do send a message that the majority of people (at least ostensibly) may not feel personal guilt or regret about the history of slavery and racism in America, but at least feel some sorrow about it.
And at #27 and #28…the apology was about allowing slavery and segregation to exist in this country. It is not about the fact that slavery existed at all. And since there is no governing body contiguous from that time among those people who can be linked to the slave-trade…of course you can’t expect an apology from them. The problem no is not drawing apologes from them or for anyone (as I contend that the gesture is not entirely hollow), but rather the eradication of racism in general…which will only come through symapthy and humility and openness, which this sort of apology (at least ostensibly) does demonstrate.
But because at least one of you is such an inveterate racist, I dare say it will only cause your bile to run over…which is still a delightful notion.
Jenna's Bush
Now they need to pass a resolution apologizing for 2000 years of homophobia.
tallskin
Jenna’s Bush, I can’t imagine any of the sky pixie religions apologising for 2,000 years of homophobia – I mean they are still fighting tooth and nail to stop gay equality and are the main force opposing us.
A plague on their poxy sky pixie worship.
tallskin
Indeed Churchill_Y – the only reason we now consider slavery immoral and bad is due to the british – the first and only civilisation to end slavery in all history – at great economic disadvantage as well.
Some of the strongest opposition to the end of slavery came from the muslims, by the way.
msim
Gays are everywhere. We are every one.
10-15% of American slaves (like in all groups)were gay surely. This is, like all things, a gay issue.
I fail to understand how some white gays cannot understand that some groups who have been historically oppressed might appreciate an apology. What is wrong about apoligising for a homophobic, racist, sexist system?
Great post Trenton!!!
Slavery? Yes, many people of many cultures profited from it. It doesn’t make anyone who profited from it less guilty.
Endymnion
“I summon my blue-eyed slaves anytime it pleases me. I command the Americans to send me their bravest soldiers to die for me. Anytime I clap my hands a stupid genie called the American ambassador appears to do my bidding. When the Americans die in my service their bodies are frozen in metal boxes by the US Embassy and American airplanes carry them away, as if they never existed. Truly, America is my favorite slave.” –
King Fahd Bin Abdul-Aziz, Jeddeh 1993
Jaroslaw
FRI – what exactly do you mean by “I must learn to accept this is reality?” That White privilege exists? I’m perfectly well aware of that – and volunteering for Black organization doesn’t change that? Maybe not, but what would you suggest, that is of course “reality based?” and in the realm of the possible for individuals who don’t necessarily have the desire or option to take on changing the world their full time job? In case you missed my nuanced point, I’m doing what I can and your comments are rather rude and insulting, even though you may not have intended them to be. Even if Black people have suffered like no other, and I believe that is true, your position to constantly remind people of it accomplishing NOTHING as well.