I was gratified to read Senator Burris’ response to the resolution. Equality has truly arrived when an African-American can buy a seat in the US Senate just like all those white politicians before him. I eagerly await the day when the first black governor of the great state of Illinois is elected, inaugurated and ultimately indicted for crimes perpetrated while in office just like all those white politicians that preceded. In the meantime, please accept my apologies for the US Constitution of 1789, the Trail of Tears, the stock market crash of 1929, Hiroshima, Brown v Board of Education, and all the other controversial events in American history I may have overlooked. The check is in the mail.

Whether Africans inslaved Africans doesn’t matter. The fact that human slavery built much of the power of this country was something that needed to be acknowleged and apoligized for.

So, you think you’re not a slave, now? Consider the fact that every dollar you THINK you have is actually on loan from the Federal Reserve. And, you thought our national debt was a problem.

What a perfectly worthless, meaningless waste of taxpayer-supported time our illustrious Senate engaged in. They should leave the symbolism to Hollywood. There is not one person alive in the U.S. Senate or the U.S. as a nation who had anything to do with slavery; thus, this “apology” is hollow and needless. I would, however, be interested to hear an apology from our government for nearly 40 years worth of legally murdered, unborn children. I’m not holding my breath, though.

“Capital punishment is our way of demonstrating the sanctity of life.”– Orrin Hatch

Sarah,

I do believe that most Blacks and Africans realize this. But, weren’t Africans heathens and didn’t they worship other gods in these parts of Africa and they even sacrificed their children to these other gods? So, it doesn’t surprise me that they did such evil and satanic things.

On the other hand, wasn’t the supposedly great America supposedly a country founded on Christian principles and was she not the largest slave trader and holder of slaves in the entire world partaking in Africa’s evil becoming partners with her? I guess this kind of religious and Christian hypocrisy in America is just so deeply inbreed here that it is such a powerful stronghold that is choking the life out of his country.

The fact that Africans were guilty, that doesn’t place America in any better light and how sad you and so many others don’t understand or believe that. My guess is that you too are one who proclaims Christian? I do pity people who truly don’t understand what truth really is and here you are thinking it is it is something so surprising about Africans who worshipped other gods and who even sacrificed their own children to these other gods selling their own people into slavery.

Lisa,

Last November African leaders, Kings, Chiefs, local government officials and business leaders including The President of Benin, traveled to Atlanta, GA to seek forgiveness from African Americans for the role of Africans in the slave trade. It was organized by Dream Africa, an England-Wales based charitable organization who for the first time ever organized such an event that was first held in London in 2007 in recognition of the role Africans played in the slave trade throughout the United Kingdom.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art59523.asp

Sarah’s post is the most accurate here. Blacks sold blacks to the slave traders as a result of conquering other tribes. Blacks are still enslaving blacks in Sudan. The law of the land allowed it. Why should a law be passed for retroactive compensation? As long as blacks want to keep using slavery as an excuse for their failure as a race in this country instead of taking responsibility for their life, race relations will not improve. Many blacks think whites are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Not so and get over it. We just had parents who held us to higher expectations and were involved in our lives. We went to school, stayed out of prison, and worked extremely hard to make a life for ourselves. We chose not to take the welfare route where families for 5 or 6 generations to support ourselves. God helps those who help themself. Why, becasue opportunities are presented to those who have prepared themself.

Clyde-I will take issue with 2 statements which have made.First, I was not defending the institution of slavery-I was asking posters to refrain from judging an event which occurred years ago in the context of todays morality.
Secondly, you assert that all people accepted, hundreds of years ago that slavery was a great evil. Consider this analogy. 200 years from now it will become accepted fact that apes are sentient beings and these future people will look back at us and condemn us for having caged these apes and forced them into circuses for our amusement, even used them for medical experiments! Different eras, different perceptions. Whether slavery was an evil or not can be debated from both sides. It could be argued that the lot of the Africans was enhanced by removing them from the jungle where they were leopard bait to be eaten by animals or each other. In America, the savages were civilized and cared for. The literature of the day, Uncle Toms’Cabin notwithstanding, viewed the life of the southern slaves as not an evil at all. Nor, I suspect did many of the slaves themselves. Where this not the case, the Southern economy would have collapsed when the men of the plantations and farms left to defend their country from invasion. There was no uprising of the slaves. In general, they stayed in their homes and maintained the farms.The picture painted by todays revisionists portray a life of cruelty, rape, and punishment. This simply was not the case. Who in their right mind would spend the equivalent of thousands of dollars for a farm implement and mistreat it? It makes no sense. A study of the lives of the Southern slaves will demonstrate that they were treated as well as, and better than, the immigrant factory workers of the North during that period.

I try not to get sucked in, but…

I see nothing wrong with an apology for slavery. While the point is made correctly that it was the law of the land at that time and was accepted at that time, we now know differently, don’t we? The Holocaust was accepted and legal in Nazi Germany, but that too was wrong. The point is that it is never to late to say sorry for past wrongdoings. No, it doesn’t change what happened, or improve the lives of anyone today. It does mark a time when forgiveness is asked for and (hopefully) forgiveness is granted.

Now, in some people’s mind, that forgiveness needs to come in the form of a check.

As for reparations - sorry, but I am completely and totally against them. First, what the black community truly needs is SUSTAINABILITY. Sustained educational, economic, financial, and family success and growth. A one time payment, no matter how large, is NOT going to fix the past, and it won’t cure the ills of black culture today. I can understand the appeal of a big fat check, but any black leader today is being dishonest with themselves and their constituents if they continue to push for this payment. Money isn’t going to make more black fathers hang around after conception and take care of their kids. Money isn’t going to make parents suddenly care more for their kids and make them work harder in school. Etc etc etc.

The more time that is wasted focusing on reparations the less time we spend coming up with truly helpful ideas that will foster the healing and growth of black America…

taxpayer

First off, I did not say all people knew slavery was wrong, I said many. But I am sure that everybody knew it was wrong, they just chose to ignore it. And yes, you are defending the past institution of slavery. Indifference and acceptance by the people of that time period did not justify the practice.

Also, there were uprisings by slaves. Nat Turner pops into my head right away. And how is recorded first-hand accounts by slaves, accounts of beatings, rapes, and worse, revisionist history. It is not revisionist, it is real. Northern factory workers were paid, and could go find another job. If a slave “quit”, they were hunted down.

And I love animals as much as the next guy, and find the caging of animals in zoos reprehensible. However, comparing the plight of apes to slaves? Are you really going to go there? That is an insulting analogy. I will be the first to apologize to the apes, but the enslavement, mistreatment, discrimination, and abuse of living, breathing, speaking, human beings, because of their skin color, their f’ing skin color, is far more cruel, and will probably, because of white people’s unwillingness to own up to the fact, be a problem for the next 200 years. Sorry, but the apes will have to wait a little longer for their apology.