Senate to take up resolution apologizing for slavery

[sabra]

Source: CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. Senate on Thursday was scheduled to consider a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for the wrongs of slavery.

The nonbinding resolution sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is similar to a House resolution adopted last year that acknowledged the wrongs of slavery but offered no reparations.

Several states have passed similar resolutions, but the House resolution was the first time a branch of the federal government did so.


Read more: http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/18/senate-to-take-... /

[madeline_con]

1. I thought Clinton (Bill) already did that.

[Flora]

5. That's what I thought

that Clinton had already done this.

Why again?? I thought we had moved on..

[mbperrin]

15. Think what you like. He didn't do it.

But you know what? Cheap words are so easy, that just fuck it! Don't apologize, just say we're glad we were a country built on slavery, and that we're sorry that we still don't have it, bu we try and do what we can with convict labor and minimum wage laws that are really maximum wages for certain industries, and you know what? Only the ruling class deserves health insurance, either!

Hooray for the Darwinian winners, the rich, the wealthy, the God blessed!

Fuck the slaves, fuck the Irish, fuck the Mexicans, and all the other people who imagine themselves oppressed, like the Jews in the Holocaust. After all, none of the Jews killed in the Holocaust are still alive today, so forget it. Why have days of remembrance?

I really get tired of people thinking words are enough, and that words are so fucking valuable that we can't even say two of them 140 years later - "We're sorry." Even once.

Wait, I think Idol is about to start! Gotta go - really important!

[Bandit]

16. He did indeed do it and in fact did it overseas as well

He went to a famous prison where slaves were kept before being shipped off to a foreign land and made an "official" apology to the world. He also did the same in the USA in a TV interview.

[mbperrin]

17. Nope. Here's what was said.

http://media.www.collegian.com/media/storage/paper864/n...

During Bill Clinton's tour of Africa, our President flirted with offering an apology for the Atlantic slave trade. "It is as well not to dwell too much on the past, but I think it is worth pointing out that the United States has not always done the right thing by Africa," he said. "Going back to the time before we were even a nation, European-Americans received the fruits of the slave trade, and we were wrong in that." I can't fault the passive language, the halting admission of what everyone in the world already knows (with the possible exception of certain areas in Africa and the Middle East, particularly Sudan, Ghana and Mauritania, where a slave can still be purchased). Political realities make a full admission of America's culpability impossible. Clinton and his party still need the good wishes and votes of the angry white voter. So, instead of issuing a full apology, Clinton spoke about misjudgements and regrets. An apology for slavery would also mean telling white America that they haven't earned what they have, that the accumulated wealth of European-Americans was gathered on the back of black America.

Lots more, and this is just the first hit off a Google search.

[Soylent Brice]

2. translation: sorry. the mule and 40 acres? all out.

nice gesture, but that's all it is really.

[madmom]

3. I understand where this is comomg from BUT, don't they have more pressing things to take care of?

[Bushknew]

4. How about just passing single payer?

[madeline_con]

6. Because flag burning and abolishing abortion aren't Dem goals?

What a big fat waste of time.

[jaysunb]

7. Fuck an apology !

I stiil want my 40 acres and that mule. ( at todays rates )

[Thothmes]

14. Were you a slave at the end of 1865?

[Merryweather]

8. Instead of apologizing for something which ended over 150 years ago

they should try getting rid of the injustices of today, like the rights currently denied to gay people.

[saigon68]

9. How about some good medical care for the Citizens ?

OOPS they have to genuflect to the Corporate Thugs in charge of health care !!

Reform they say, "Fuck that".

[Merryweather]

10. That spineless idiot Daschle is now even advocating

that the Democrats drop the public option entirely, because some Republican somewhere just might throw a tantrum. And this guy was nearly HHS Secretary! God, I wish we had someone like LBJ in Congress to give the gutless wonders the good old Johnson treatment and force them to get on board.

[twitomy]

11. Gee, I didnt know there were any ex-slaves still alive..

Anyway, I think the blood shed and Union lives lost in the Civil War
was atonement enough IMHO.

[struggle4progress]

13. Some people who knew ex-slaves are still alive

[Psephos]

12. One Congressional apology is not enough. Perhaps we can establish an annual apology festival.

It's also high time that the descendants of Cro-Magnons who live in this bastion of racial, class, and gender hatred apologize for what was done to Neanderthals.

And it's time for that bastard kid who threw a softball at the back of my head in fourth grade to step to the podium and beat his breast for what was, in retrospect, an act of regional bigotry (he lived on the West side of town; I lived on the East.)

Let's get all of the atrocities done by ancestors taken care of while we're at it. Although it will take years of nonstop effort, nothing is more important in the cause of eliminating racism than constantly pointing fingers, reminding everyone how important racial hatred is compared to our essential commonality, and how what dead people did in the past can never stop controlling us in the present. I'm sure we can figure out a way to monetize it, too.

Or we could re-read a book like this and understand that in human relations, no wound heals if you keep ripping the scab off of it.

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Hate-Behavior-Patterns-Found...

[mbperrin]

18. So you would support not mentioning the Holocaust any more?

Applying your same reasoning: no wound heals if you keep ripping the scab off of it

Just checking. Cause the Holocaust lasted less than a decade. Slavery in this country lasted 10 times longer, if you only count from when we became an independent country.