I don’t know where I’ve been but I thought the government already apologized for slavery. Seems to me Bill Clinton did it when he was in Africa one time. Anyway, last Thursday the Senate passed a resolution, with all the substance that resolutions provide, to apologize for slavery and segregation. That and that the resolution is not to be used as fodder for the reparations crowd which, it already is.
OK fine. Now can we move on?
David Almasi at the National Center for Public Policy Research puts it this way.
The U.S. Senate resolution apologizing for slavery and segregation will be used as a lobbying tool to acquire reparations payments, say members of the black leadership network Project 21. The group urges the Senate to “move on,” saying the apology will do little to heal perceived racial gaps.
On June 18, senators unanimously passed a resolution apologizing for slavery and segregation in the United States. While the resolution was written with the intention that it could not be used to support claims for monetary reparations, reparations activists Randall Robinson told the Washington Post the legislation constitutes a “confession” that will aid the process of acquiring reparations. Harvard professor Charles Ogletree said the resolution should not be a substitute for reparations, saying “That battle will be prolonged.”
Project 21 members voicing skepticism about the politics behind the resolution and the need for it:
Jerry Brooks (Auburn, WA): “I’ll accept the Senate’s apology, but let’s move on already. This apology is something that might have been more appropriate long ago, and now it’s likely going to be misused by those with a political axe to grind. In particular and despite its intention to the contrary, it is already being used to promote reparations. Not only is this an idea without merit, but an extremely foolish one to be clinging to while our nation is trying to recover from its current economic distress.”
Brooks continued, “I also take offense to the ignorant partisan attacks involved in this debate. In trying to infer Republicans are responsible for slavery is downright silly considering that the party came about as part of the movement to abolish slavery.”
link: Black Activists Call Senate Slavery Apology “Useless”; Say It Will Empower the Call for Reparations
And what is it that those, like you, who ‘demand full Repair-rations’ are expecting to get from those Africans who actually did the shipping and handling part of slavery? Nothing? It is all whiteys’ fault?
Seems to me, it was whiteys, Republican whiteys at that, that were instrumental in ending slavery in this country over a hundred years ago.
Here’s something to chew on that, I think, puts this whole reparations thing in its proper perspective. It was from Thomas Sowell. . .
Every religion stresses repentance, The very ones who ‘taught the slaves the concept of repentance; “it takes them three centuries to repent” but with little sincerity; there must be some kind of concrete, symbolic gesture to back this Apology: Act of Repentance: A popular spokesman for African and oppressed people described it best…Even if people of good will refuse to believe, or practice slavery, oppression, and economic exploitation, countless generations of Caucasian people “still benefits from it.” For three and a half centuries, people of Kametic-African descent – were exploited physically, (hundreds of years of free labor); economically, had there birth rights (culture) stolen, intellectually, (had there intellectual property stolen); with out so much as an apology, until now, June 18th,2009: 150 years hence; A popular leader also made this statement: for 350 years the enslaver had his foot long knife in the Back of his enslaved subjects, African, Kametic People, now he wiggles the knife a little bit, and the subject is supposed to be grateful, even if the knife is removed completely, it still will leave a scar…We demand full Repair-rations.