Current Affairs Apology for slavery?

Give me a break...

I don't want an apology those bastards meant to enslave African Americans it wasn't an accident!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070424/ap_on_re_us/slavery_apology

What an insult...

Why should people who didn't do anything have to apologize. The part that makes it insulting is that it's basically half-assed.

 

Several things we must remember:

#1. Slavery has been around longer than most people realize. Africans were enslaving other Africans long before the Europeans arrived. In fact it was these Africans who began the trade with the Europeans in the first place. The Jews have been oppressed and ridiculed for thousands of years as well, so it's not just the African-Americans. The Egyptians owe many of their greatest wonders (buildings) to the Jewish. Slavery STILL exists in Africa to this very day.

#2. I have never, to the best of my memory, owned a slave or shown racial inequity towards someone else. Ever. I have lived my life to the best of my own moral values in accommodation to the differing moral values of those around me. Why should I, or any other American who has these same credentials, apologize to the DECENDENTS of slaves, for a crime I have never committed? I'm not even apologizing to the people who were sinned against, it's their distant relatives.

Let's Flashforward a few hundred years and take ourselves to the 50's and 60's. Now there, is a completely different story. I can buy the United States Government owing those WHO WERE ALIVE PRIOR TO the passing of the resolutions making Blacks equal with Whites an apology. These individuals are still alive and a thus the said apology would be directed at those who had to endure the pain of being discriminated against.

However the apology given by the state of Alabama is not directed towards those individuals. It's about slavery.

I cannot see the justification of sending a letter to those who never had to endure the pain of slavery; those who only carry the resentment passed on by our society. It’s acceptable to use grudges as a form of leverage to generate an action from the US Government? …Huh?

Perhaps I'm confused. Birthright is a matter of complete luck. Your skin color, where you live, and the kind of society you live in is a matter of chance. Why should a certain group of people be entitled to special privileges based upon their luck of the draw? As long as you have not endured the pain of such sacrileges why should you get special treatment? What happened to one race, one people?

"I learned from my Dad, I won't hurt you like he did. Why are you holding me accountable?"

Rather than learning from our past we're dwelling upon it and allowing it to build up negative resentment and further spread racism, on both sides of the line. Once more skin color divides, which, as far as I’m concerned, is wrong no matter how you justify it.

One race, one people, celebrating thier strengths together where the only division is the individual. Yeah, it's a pipe dream, I know, but one can hope.

~W

 

We all bleed the same don't we...

I like your thoughts Wert. Always insightful.