BS: Apologies over slave trade?

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: bobad
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:07 AM

Clifford Stoll refers to it as "wage indentured servitude"

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:05 AM

"Capitalism is still largely dependent on labour that is enslaved or paid poorly. "

That's a very broad statement. Paid poorly, yes. In relation to the owners of the factories and mills, it is increasingly so. But not slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Kweku
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:56 AM

Jerry you a very right there. Maybe in the near future I could organise a trip for people who think slavery was a joke to come down to Cape Coast and Kumasi(armed forces meseum), and feel darkness like cloth hanging to your body. then it can be put to them if they think an apology is necessary.

most people complain about war crimes, but that can NEVER EVER be compared to the slave dungeons.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: bobad
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:45 AM

I agree about the missionaries with you Quarcoo, as they did in Africa they also enslaved the native Americans by alienating them from their traditions and cultural beliefs, this was an enslavement of the spirit.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Kweku
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:18 AM

My grand-mother once told me how the people of Kromantse(Central Region-Ghana) were deceived into taking drinks by missionaries which later landed them in the carribeans. anyone who knows Jamaica very well should know of Kromantse(they also have a town named like that,obviously by the slaves).

The slave thing is not only about the apology, but about the fact that most Africans themselves know very little about the whole saga. if I were to demand an apology it would be from every so-called christian missionaries that steped their foot into Africa and has ultimately led to our current demise.

I demand an apology from these vampires in sheep's clothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:45 AM

Bunnahabhain - 22 Jun 06 - 09:56 AM

"Britian ended the slave trade in British ships and colonies in 1830, and the Royal Navy kept up anti-slavery patrols off African coasts until at least the First World War. We need a similar effort now, for the good of the people involved, and the country."

I believe that Bunnahabhain referred to such actions in another thread about Dreadnoughts. Where it was cited that British Gunboat Diplomacy was worse than that of the United States as the Royal hove into sight bombarded a country overwhelmed it in half and hour added it to the Empire and then charged the local rulers for the shells expended. the incident Bunnahabain was refering to I believe was the destruction of Zanzibar as the main slave trading post on the East Coast of Africa, whose ruler after repeated warnings continued to allow the slave trade to flourish. Rather unfortunate as the populations the Slavers were plundering happened to fall under the protection of that evil British Empire. Not so many did after Zanzibar was taken out of the equation.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:04 AM

The French Revolution got rid of slavery in the French Colonies. Napoleon Bonaparte actually re-introduced it!

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 08:52 AM

Britain has a proud and disgraceful history of slavery. We used slavery, then we outlawed slavery and travelled the west coast of africa to the riddance of slavery.

No apologies neccessary, my father lives in rhodesia and black on black slavery is rife there.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 07:15 AM

The quote was $1,000 but I think there is also a difference of the usage of trillion, billion and million.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 06:41 AM

"And did you know a trillion bucks is $1,000 per second since the birth of Jesus"

"A trillion is a 1000 billion; and at $1000 a second would only take about 31 years. Since I don't think Christ was born in 1975 that statement is a little misleading."

60 seconds per minute
60 minutes per hour
3600 seconds per hour
86400 seconds per day
31,536,000 seconds per year.
1,000,000,000,000 divided by 31,536,000 = over 31,709 years

That's one dollar a second, not 1000, FP. Oh look, 31 years....

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 02:55 AM

The Romans depended increasingly on slavery for their economic wealth. However,the slaves in Rome came from all corners of the Empire and beyond its extensive borders.
The Atlantic slave trade was different.Slavery had to be "morally"justified by the slave masters, church leaders and the politicians of the time and the justification came in the that black Africans were supposedly subhuman . Here was the justification for the modern racism which has so poisoned many.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 08:58 PM

I don't buy Scoville's argument that since mnay of our ancsestors came to the US after slavery that these immigrants are off the hook...

When we look at the wealth and infastructure of this country that we all enjoy, a disporpoprtunate of it was created on either slaves or black folks during the days of Jim Crow, which wasn't much better...

This I why I think we need a real discussion of our past and what we, as a nation, owe folks who, yes, were freed legally but still enslaved in a system of abuse and discrimination...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 08:33 PM

Slavery had been around for a long time, but the Atlantic slave trade, and chattel slavery as it developed in the Americas, was something else, with some features that were uniquely horrible. It is good that people should be reminded of the part that those jolly "Elizabethan Adventurer" like Sir John Hawkins played in the establishment of this system.

The sheer scale of the slave system that developed from this source, the racial ideology that developed to underpin it, and the juxtaposition of a dehumanising slave centred economy with a highly developed and in the case of the States "progressive" and "democratic" society - these were different from anything that came before.   And they were precursors of what came after, most notably in the shape of Nazism.

The difference between traditional slavery, and the developed slave system is analogous to the difference between the endemic antisemitism that had existed, and the Holocaust. The difference between a horrible hangover from the past and a nightmare vision of a future world where these things would become normalised.

And we need to be aware that the central feature of slavery - using people as property - is not a thing of the past, it is still very much alive and constantly being reinvented and extended.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: dianavan
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 08:23 PM

An apology is a nice gesture but it rings hollow when governments are doing very little to halt human trafficing. It almost feels like a "whitewash". I don't buy it for a minute. Seems to me if they are putting so much money into securing the borders against terrorists, they should also be able to bring the slave trade to a halt. Thats not happening, though. Capitalism is still largely dependent on labour that is enslaved or paid poorly.

What the minimum wage these days?

Reminds me of the sinner who asks for forgiveness and turns around and does the same thing the next day.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 07:14 PM

My wife is still involved in it !

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 05:55 PM

History of Chattel Slavery

from http://www.legacy-project.org/index.php?page=event_detail&eventID=17

"...The Portuguese began the practice [of enslaving Africans & importing them for laborin their Western Hemisphere colonies]in 1444; by 1460, they were annually importing 700 to 800 slaves to Portugal from trading posts and forts established on the African coast.

These were African people captured by other Africans and transported to the western coast of Africa. Spain soon followed.

Throughout the 15th century, Arab traders in northern Africa shipped African people taken from central Africa to markets in Arabia, Iran, and India. With the rise of the slave trade to the Americas, wars over the control of African commerce became more intense. During the four centuries of the slave trade, millions of Africans fell victim to this traffic in human lives.

Most were captured by other Africans and exchanged for various consumer goods, and participation in the capture and trade of slaves played a role in the rise of several African kingdoms...

England entered the slave trade in the latter half of the 16th century, and France, Holland, Denmark, and the American colonies themselves subsequently entered the trade as competitors...

Denmark was the first European country to abolish the slave trade, in 1792. Britain followed in 1807, and the United States followed in 1808. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814, Britain exerted its influence to induce other foreign powers to adopt a similar policy, and eventually nearly all the states of Europe passed laws or entered into treaties prohibiting the traffic. The French emancipated their slaves in 1848. The Dutch slaves had freedom conferred on them in 1863.

Most of the new republics of South America provided for the emancipation of slaves at the time of their establishment. In Brazil slavery was not abolished until 1888. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, abolishing slavery throughout the United States, was ratified in 1865.

In 1951 a United Nations committee on slavery reported that the practice of slavery was declining rapidly, with only a vestige of slavery remaining in a few areas of the world."

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 05:19 PM

fyi

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: bobad
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 05:05 PM

As were the Romans before them.

"The Romans also traded for slaves. We know, for example, that a great portion of the Roman wine sold in Gaul was paid for in human currency (as many as 15,000 a year). One aspect of Gallic and German slavery that the Romans found interesting was the willingness [at least from the Roman point of view] of individuals to sell themselves into slavery to pay off their own debts. European tribes also sold their war captives to Roman slave traders and merchants. Finally, the practice of piracy provided a steady supply of slaves. Pirates would routinely kidnap individuals from seized ships and sell them into slavery. Similarly, they could attack coastal towns and villages and sell the population wholesale into slavery. Finally, they often worked with gangs based on the mainland. The gangs would attack and seize the towns, turn them over to the pirates who would arrange the sale of captives in ports with slave merchants, and split the profits with the gangs."

http://abacus.bates.edu/~mimber/Rciv/slavery.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:51 PM

The Portuguese were in it before the Brits were.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,Martin
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:40 PM

Did Britain not start the slave trade ?

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: frogprince
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:09 PM

"And did you know a trillion bucks is $1,000 per second since the birth of Jesus"

"A trillion is a 1000 billion; and at $1000 a second would only take about 31 years. Since I don't think Christ was born in 1975 that statement is a little misleading."

60 seconds per minute
60 minutes per hour
3600 seconds per hour
86400 seconds per day
31,536,000 seconds per year.
1,000,000,000,000 divided by 31,536,000 = over 31,709 years

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Scoville
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:06 PM

Never mind that a significant portion of the [white] U.S. population today is descended from people who came over after slavery ended.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:55 PM

The slave trade from Africa to the Americas was on a gigantic scale involving many millions of captives . Surely it was the scale of the barbarity which distinguished it from other slave societies. And it was the slave trade and the use of slave labour in the West Indies and the Americas which fuelled the rise of capitalism .As Marx said capitalism was born in blood and gore.
The descendents of slaves do not only need an apology.... the countries of the so called Third World need to have their state debts written off as I don't see why slum dwellers and the rural poor should have to pay with their sweat and labour for the foolish lending policies of western bankers and the corruption of local political leaders and thuggish dictators.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: MMario
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:23 PM

And did you know a trillion bucks is $1,000 per second since the birth of Jesus

A trillion is a 1000 billion; and at $1000 a second would only take about 31 years. Since I don't think Christ was born in 1975 that statement is a little misleading.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:14 PM

And to bring it up to date:

Anti-Slavery

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:01 PM

Actually the UK ended the slave trade in 1807, with emancipation coming much later in 1834.

Hull is home to Wilberforce House, birthplace of William Wilberforce and now a museum about the slave trade. It re-opens next year with a series of other events to mark the Bi-Centenary.

Wilberforce House


A series of 360 degree views

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:23 PM

I agree that these apologies for the actions of past generations are pointless.
It looks like Canada will apologise for the head tax imposed on Chinese years ago- may even pay compensation.

History being wrapped in a sanitary napkin.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:19 PM

Google Cynthia McKinney + Dyncorp. A hundred thousand women and children disappeared during the U.N. breakup of Yugoslavia initiated by Bill Clinton. 100,000. And Democrat McKinney asked Donald Rumsfeld why his Dept of Defense just awarded Dyncorp a lucrative contract, since the corporations is dealing in the slave trade.

It goes on today, it goes on today, it goes on today. A black woman in the U.S. congress is telling you it goes on today. Quit looking back and think about YOUR kids being sold into brothels.

And check the internet for her video clip...fascinating. She asks why Dyncorp got the contract, she asked why NORAD planes stood down on Sept 11, and she asked why 2.3 trillion dollars had still not been accounted for by the Pentagon (it was the accounting dept of the Pentagon that got blown up on 9-11, by the way). And did you know a trillion bucks is $1,000 per second since the birth of Jesus. And 2.3 trillion was missing from the Pentagon at the time they blew up their accounting dept.

Rumsfeld didn't answer any of the woman's questions. He excused himself to go to lunch.

End of sermon.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:10 PM

I will personally apologize on behalf of my ancestors, some of whom were southern, for any participation in the slave travesty. There was great poverty in my mother's (and father's) side of the family, but they very well could have been overseers, as they were considered, in a very offensive phrase to all concerned "poor white trash." So I am very sorry if any of my family participated in this in any way, which they probably did. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 11:27 AM

Yes, Peace and I'd add to your statement that effective efforts and not just lip service needs to be mounted to stop slavery that is still occuring in Africa and elsewhere now.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 11:26 AM

They should.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 11:23 AM

. . . and some sort of, "Hey! This ain't gonna happen again."

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,Bruce Baillie
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 11:23 AM

...The thing is are the Africans going to apologize for their part in the enslavement of hundreds, if not thousands of Cornish people taken by force from their homes by the Barbary pirates to help build Moulay Ishmaels great palace back in the eighteenth century! Read Giles Miltons excellent book 'White Gold' and you'll see a different side of things!

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 11:22 AM

Hell, B, Ford never even apologized for the Pinto. So, they allowed many people to be burned to death in the name of profits.

Firestone tires ring a bell with anyone?

However, as was pointed out earlier, one step to fixin' things is an apology.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 11:18 AM

Even IF during the time that people felt free to enslave other people, because it was legal, because all the 'best' people did it, because they could afford it, because they 'needed' them, because they inherited them, because the enslaved were not 'human' anyway, or for whatever other reason, all we have to do in order to see if they felt guilt in doing so is to picture them treating animals in the same fashion.

Even 500 years ago, people may not have worried much about the wellbeing of their dogs (Even today some people of the north don't feed their dogs in the offseason but let them run free, forcing them to scavenge), their horses and their pigs but they were most certainly aware of the concept of care and protection.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 11:09 AM

Well, would you expect a member of the Ford family to apologise in a few centuries time for the pollution caused by motor cars, a trade they had a prominant part in popularisisng?

People and actions should always be taken in context, or they are impossible to judge or interpret.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 10:56 AM

I see your point. Andrew Hawkins is apologizing on behalf of someone who wouldn't dream of doing so.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 10:56 AM

In your mind, no doubt.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,Penguin Egg
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 10:49 AM

The Greeks had slaves, so did the Romans, so did nearly every country in antiquity. Slavery is awful. I am not defending the practice. I am mearly cricising pointless gestures, such as those by Mr Andrew Hawkins, the descendent of Sir John Hawkins. I am also standing up for the right of Sir John Hawkins to be judged by the standards of his own time, and not ours. Sir John Hawkins saw nothing wrong in the slave trade because no-one else did at the time. It is as simple as that.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 10:29 AM

When my wife and I were in Ghana five years ago, we visited a couple of slave "castles" and it was the most stomach-churning experience I've ever had. One of the many revelations was that countries I never realized were in the slave business actually were. My Grandparents were born and raised in Denmark, and I always figured that the Danes would never engage in such a barbarious, evil activity. That illusion was shattered, the more I learned about slavery.

As for the mindset of people 400 years ago, and whether they thought there was anything wrong with slavery or not, that doesn't excuse the practice. And it's hard for me to believe that slave traders couldn't see the evil in their acts. How could you split up a family and sell wife, husband and children to different buyers, and not be moved by the suffering you were causing? How could you look at other humans as nothing more than cattle? How could you lock them in a cavernous dungeon with only a tiny window to allow air and sunlight into the space, with human waste two or three feet deep and think there was nothing wrong with it.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Stand in one of those dungeons and see the stained walls where the filth rose to, and tell me you don't smell the stench of human evil.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 10:29 AM

Also, didn't the US government provide a formal apology for Japanese internment camps during World War II?

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 10:26 AM

Also, for those who might say that the USA has never made any formal apology, see this excerpt from an article about a formal apology that the US Senate finally made in 2005:

Senate apologizes for failure to pass anti-lynching law
By Robert Marus
Published June 14, 2005


"The United States Senate has offered a belated apology for something it repeatedly failed to do: Stop a century of lynchings that killed thousands of African-Americans and other minorities.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, white mobs would hang or otherwise murder minorities or immigrants accused of real or imagined offenses, almost always without being prosecuted and predominantly in the South.

In an acknowledgement of that history, the Senate's chief sponsors of the anti-lynching resolution, passed June 13, were two white Southerners -- Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and George Allen (R-Va.) -- who were joined by 78 co-sponsors.

"Without question, there have been other grave injustices committed in the noble exercise of establishing this great democracy," Landrieu said, introducing the bill on the Senate floor. "However, there may be no other injustice in American history for which the Senate so uniquely bears responsibility. In refusing to take up legislation passed by the House of Representatives on three separate occasions and requested by seven presidents from William Henry Harrison to Harry Truman, the Senate engaged in a different kind of culpability."

The voice vote means no objection to the bill was recorded. However, while most Southern senators signed on as co-sponsors, six did not. They were Republicans Richard Shelby of Alabama, Thad Cochran and Trent Lott of Mississippi, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.

The bill itself cites 4,742 reports of lynchings in the United States between 1882 and 1968. The practice was particularly pronounced around the turn of the 20th century. Opinion polls by the 1930s showed large majorities of the public -- even in the South -- supported making lynching a federal offense. But on all three occasions, Southern senators blocked the House bills from floor votes. They claimed making lynching a federal offense would infringe on states' rights...

The resolution also noted the practice was not limited to the South, or to African-American victims. According to a survey by the Tuskegee Institute, there were documented lynchings in all but four states. In addition, the victims included not only African-Americans but also Jews, Italian immigrants, Latinos, Asians and American Indians.

The anti-lynching resolution comes amid renewed attention to the race-related crimes of the civil-rights era. Earlier this year, federal officials announced they would reopen the investigation into the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American from Chicago who was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was accused of whistling at a white female store clerk.

On the day the Senate passed the resolution, the trial opened for a reputed Mississippi Ku Klux Klan member who allegedly was involved in the famous murder of three civil-rights workers near Philadelphia, Miss., in 1964."


http://www.abpnews.com/379.article

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 10:06 AM

You just spoke for Canucks, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 10:04 AM

I can not speak for the English but as an citizen of the United States, I am not only embarrassed by my countries history but wish that my fellow citizens had the courage to make a formal apology for participating in slavery...

And, no matter how folks want to whitewash (pun intended) the real story, those folks whop were slaves didn't wish it upon themselves and many flat out wouldn't accept it and either ran or died trying...

And historically lets look at another aspect of slavery in the United States... With the Ammancipation Proclamation, all Lincoln said is "Yer free" but what did free mean in a world where former slaves had nuthin' and were given nuthin'???

Then in 1876 the Union troops pulled out of the South and Jim Crow was born which lasted purdy much until the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education in 1954...

So for alot of us here in Mudville the direct results of slavery were still going strong during our life times... And it can be argued that they are still going strong... All one needs to do is drive thru any inner city in America...

Yeah, this discussion, as well as a discussion on remdies, is way overdue in the U.S... Can't speak for my UK friends...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:59 AM

"British anti-slavery was one of the most important reform movements of the 19th century. But its history is not without ironies. During the course of the 18th century the British perfected the Atlantic slave system. Indeed, it has been estimated that between 1700 and 1810 British merchants transported almost three million Africans across the Atlantic. That the British benefited from the Atlantic slave system is indisputable. Yet, paradoxically, it was also the British who led the struggle to bring this system to an end.

The history of British anti-slavery can be divided into a number of distinct phases. The first of these stretched from 1787 to 1807 and was directed against the slave trade. Of course, there had been initiatives before this date. The Quakers, for instance, petitioned Parliament against the slave trade as early as 1783 and a similar petition was submitted in 1785, this time from the inhabitants of Bridgwater in Somerset. But by and large these were piecemeal efforts, involving a relatively small number of people. It was the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, organised in May 1787, which set the movement on its modern course, evolving a structure and organisation that made it possible to mobilise thousands of Britons."

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:56 AM

It is too late to apologise for the West to apologise for the slave trade. What we should do is never forget, and take some action against the modern day slavers, the people trafficers. They are selling people into slavery, forced prostitution and worse.

Britian ended the slave trade in British ships and colonies in 1830, and the Royal Navy kept up anti-slavery patrols off African coasts until at least the First World War. We need a similar effort now, for the good of the people involved, and the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: freda underhill
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:51 AM

The effects of social crimes can linger on for generations - an apology is a first step to any realistic reconciliation. Reconciliation processes are happening around the world between different peoples, and are an essential step in social justice.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:46 AM

And that's another good one.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:45 AM

Also see this excerpt from the online article:

An Apology for Slavery; By Carol M. Swain;Saturday, July 16, 2005; Page A17

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071501559.html


"A national apology would be a collective response to a past collective injustice, and would imply no culpability on the part of individuals living today. America as a nation would apologize for allowing slavery within its borders, with no individual present-day party being singled out for blame.

Already, our failure to acknowledge such a blatant wrong has set us apart from other great nations that have expressed contrition for misdeeds. Consider Germany, which has apologized for the suffering caused by its actions toward Jews and others. More recently Tony Blair apologized on behalf of Britain for its treatment of the Irish during the potato famine of the 1840s. Pope John Paul II apologized for the past sins of the Roman Catholic Church against non-Catholics. Australia apologized for its mistreatment of the country's aborigine population. What, then, would be the great harm in our apologizing for slavery and the Jim Crow racism that followed?

Opponents will sometimes argue that an apology would open the door to claims for monetary reparations. But a national apology would do no such thing. To begin with, the very legality of slavery before passage of the 13th Amendment would make a claim in tort proceedings highly dubious. Then there is the problem of the statute of limitations having long expired. An additional impediment would be the absence of a living wrongdoer to prosecute. Legal precedent is against it. There is little chance that an apology would trigger the legal liability its opponents claim..."

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:44 AM

your ancestors, sure, but what about your descendents?