Apologizing for Slavery. Does it matter?

[Hippy_Hollow]

Ah, this thread was progressing - even had a little fireworks courtesy of MGibson and Askia - then Dr. Deth, you drop in here and make this about you in some way. I don’t particularly care if you apologize, don’t apologize… it’s not about you. It’s about corporations taking responsibility for actions they’ve deemed wrong. At no point did anyone suggest or ask or proffer that you, as a (making an assumption here) White American apologize for anything. In fact, I think it’s pretty presumptuous to think anyone cares. (Hell, what do I know, somebody might…)

I’m quite used to White Americans dismissing and using “logic” to avoid uncomfortable realizations of inequity perpetrated against people of color during the history of this nation. Unfortunately, in thirty plus years, it’s what I’ve come to expect. Rarely is it that a conversation like this features people honestly asking, “I don’t understand how you feel that way, but I am willing to honestly try to see where it is you are coming from.” These certain, absolute statements of fact are the usual fare.

Perhaps there’s no analogy out there that makes any sense to those who maintain that if the wronged party is dead, an apology is pointless - whether it be in the dedication of Holocaust museums throughout the world, Pope John Paul II apologizing for the Catholic Church’s inaction during WWII, President Bush apologizing for Yalta - but I would suggest that it is precisely because one doesn’t see the sense in these actions…

…is why people victimized around the world don’t “get over” the wrongdoings committed against them very easily.

I live in a town with one of the largest Armenian expatriate communities in the U.S. Every April, there are signs and posters asking all people to remember the Armenian genocide in the early part of the 20th century. Prominent Armenians like former California governor George Deukmejian have agreed that the Turkish government should apologize for their role in this tragedy. It isn’t just African Americans who feel this is a good idea.

It’s a shame this nation never had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like South Africa did after apartheid, a courageous and I imagine painful reflection on actions in the past that affect people today.

MGibson might have the right idea, even though I don’t like the motivation behind it - what if the U.S. government issued an apology, similarly worded to Wachovia’s, to all Americans and African Americans? For some folks, it would be life-changing. For others, it wouldn’t mean jack. For still others, it might piss them off and have them filing lawsuits, etc. I have a feeling for the latter group, nothing much would change. The reparations folks would continue their work, the vast majority in the middle would keep on keepin’ on. But that first group might actually find something respectable about this nation and a reason to believe in it. How is that a bad thing?

That’s enough of this today; I’ll be back tomorrow (seriously, more like later today)…

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

It’s tomorrow, a full night’s sleep later, and you folks have been doing an admirable job in keeping this one going all night.

Monstro, like it or not, this country is just filled with post-1900 immigrants who suffered discrimination upon arrival for generations, with descendants of Union soldiers who were killed, with descendants of abolitionists, and with millions of other people who can feel justly that they don’t personally owe very much at all to African-Americans. In my view, it would decent of you to acknowledge the truth of that rather than to dismiss these folks as crawling “out of the woodwork, exposing their ignorance, bigotry, hatred, and biases”–some of them (not all by any means) start from a place like, “Though I don’t feel I owe apology or reparations to black people, they have been handed a shit deal and are suffering to this day under that deal, so it benefits us all to make our society today more equitable,” but then they hear the people they empathize with denounce them, dismiss them, call them ignorant bigots seething with hatred and biases and they feel somehow insulted and misunderstood.

(And I hope you understand why these folks tend to assert their prescence in reparations threads disproportionately–because the motivations you ascribe to them have so little to do personally with these particular posters. Descendants of slaveowners would, quite naturally, tend to refrain from such discussions.)

If someone is not willing to apologize for something neither he nor his own ancestors did, but is willing to express regret for any and all wrongful actions they may have done, and to forego willingly any apologies that he might feel are due him for wrongs done to his ancestors, what is the point of labelling him a coward for being concerned that unnamed, vague reparations will diminish or destroy his present financial well-being? (Reparations, as is almost universally acknowledged, will come from everyone, not just the identifiable descendents of slaveowners.) For expressing this concern, you asked if we were “supposed to pity these people for their cowardice?”

I submit that calling these people names is counter-productive, delaying the day we can put slavery behind us. I think it would be far nobler (and far more productive) to say, “On a moral level, I feel I am owed an immeasurable amount of compensation for wrongs done to my ancestors but on a practical level, I don’t think that will ever happen, so in the name of progress, I hereby renounce the concept of monetary reparations in the hope that anyone who has benefitted in any way from the institution of slavery will feel free to offer whatever sincere apologies he or she feels appropriate.” As I said, I think you’d get a lot more apologies, and a lot more sincere apologies, without the vague spector of limitless, endless reparations being part of the equation, but maybe the continued presence of an unpayable debt is more comforting to you than any apology would be.

I don’t mean that in an obnoxious way. Feeling resentful, constantly reminded that you are owed something that will never be paid, may soothe you more than the words “I’m sorry” alone. If that’s the case, I’m sorry.

[you_with_the_face]

@pseudotriton ruber ruber

I think you overgeneralize. Which people? Not you, and not me. It’s a shame and a crime when anyone’s suffering is forgotten.

Read this thread and count the number of people who feel compelled to personalize this issue. For instance, who the hell cares that Johnny L.A.'s ancestors had no slaves? What does that have to do with the OP?

Read the old thread you linked to and the one I linked to on the first page. Count the number of people who start talking about their down-trodden ancestors as if to detract attention away from American slavery in a thread specifically about American slavery.

Also count the number of posters who dismiss the severity of slavery and then take notice of how few Dopers feel it is necessary to correct them. Why should it take only monstro and a few others to say "No, slavery was not a walk in the park."On a board dedicated to fighting ignorance, historically inaccurate comments about the scope and extent of American slavery should be torn to pieces as soon as they are submitted. But sadly, this is not usually the case here.

To the contrary, I think it’s a given that slavery is the single most crucial event in the history of African-Americans.

I do too. I wasn’t implying that everyone feels the opposite. Only that a disturbingly large percentage do.

Not at all. Free labor for hundreds of years? Who’s going to dismiss the economic significance of that?

Do a thread search on “slavery reparations”. Find your answers.

Not inappropriate. More objections have been voiced as to the pointlessness of Wachovia’s apology. I’m not sure who you think has said it was inappropriate.

Read this thread! MGibson is one of several posters who stated that Wachovia is wrong to apologize. Why else do you think this thread is heading towards 5 pages.

If the only context you want to allow is that of black slaves in the U.S., then we can just agree they had it very, very bad. But if others’ experiences are permitted, you might find that there are other experiences that may have been bad, too, if not quite as bad, and that the arguments you make about the slaves might also be made in one form or another for people of other ethnicities.

Let’s be real: these experiences are rarely offered up in the spirit of mutual understanding and learning. They are offered up in the spirit of one up-manship and disparagement. That’s usually what makes the tone of reparation threads go downhill. People are so bent on trying to portraying American slavery as ancient and remote that they stop engaging their brains, and start lashing out with ad hominem attacks and hyperdefensiveness about the innocence of whites.

Again, read older threads on this topic. You’ll see otherwise sane and intelligent posters turn into idiots before your eyes. I’m not saying all of them, but a disturbingly high percentage of them.

[wonky]

Recently, the Catholic Church apologized for aspects of the trial of Galileo. Galileo is dead, of course, and the church leaders involved are also dead.

So what does it matter? Well, it shows that the church has undergone a sea change. It demonstrates that the church understands that the trial was fucked up and unfair.

The Pope apologized for other things, too. Apologized for everything in their 2000 year history that was unjust, cruel, or plain stupid.

@John Paul II

“We forgive and we ask forgiveness. We are asking pardon for the divisions among Christians, for the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth, and for attitudes of mistrust and hostility assumed towards followers of other religions.”

It could be meaningless. Or it could mean that the church recognizes its sins, intended and unintended, and is going to strive to change.

I welcomed that apology. I still feel the church has major issues to address, but that apology is worth something to me as a former Catholic, as a person living in the world the Catholic Church has shaped. Those actions of the church affect me now. The attitudes of the church affect me now. They said they’d try to do better. Will they? Well, it’s not looking great, but I still appreciate the acknowledgment that they did awful things.

Wachovia is pretty similar. None of the specific people are still around, but the ripples that these organizations helped create are still in the waters. What is Wachovia’s responsibility? Well, they bought the fruits of slavery, and they can say exactly when they did it. I can’t know all the ways that slavery has affected my life, but Wachovia can point to some very specific moments and say, “Here’s an impact. Here’s one as well.” They can say, “We know there’s been advantage gained at the expense of others.” They can’t make it right. They can’t fix it. But they can acknowledge it, and they did.

And that’s a good thing.

[Liberal]

@JSGoddess

I can’t know all the ways that slavery has affected my life, but Wachovia can point to some very specific moments and say, “Here’s an impact. Here’s one as well.”

Why can’t you? Other than because you don’t want to bother with the time and effort? Maybe you’re descended from slave traders. Maybe your ancestor was an escort on the Trail of Tears. (Not that anybody has advocated apologizing for that.)

[QuickSilver]

@Liberal

Why can’t you? Other than because you don’t want to bother with the time and effort? Maybe you’re descended from slave traders. Maybe your ancestor was an escort on the Trail of Tears. (Not that anybody has advocated apologizing for that.)

She could I suppose. Perhaps many of us could as well. But in service of what?

[Liberal]

@QuickSilver

She could I suppose. Perhaps many of us could as well. But in service of what?

That’s my question.

[QuickSilver]

@Liberal

That’s my question.

Mine too.

But I claim, unpopularly it seems, that the RCC and Wachvia (to sight just two examples) do.

[Askia]

pseudotriton ruber ruber. I’ve got to hand it to you, you make it all sound darn pretty reasonable. It just might be smarter for African-Americans as a culture to renounce reparations first and then seek some sort of an apology from the feds, big businesses and certain notoriously large slaveowning families and move on. It might be more expedient, too. But to give up the notion that someone owes you something… to just turn your back on a debt… man. To do that, you’d have to be in a very comfortable place within yourself, wouldn’t you. I gotta tell you, as a lifelong practiciing African-American, I don’t think my people are that secure.

Here’s an idea: why not turn it around? Why should we unconditionally give up a earnestly felt right to monetary compensation for an apology… first? Why do we need to make the first move in that equation? Why doesn’t the government and corporate business sincerely apologize first for the abuses of slavery and the attended racist doctrines used to prop up that system, with all the genuine regret and sympathy you can muster, while assuming responsibility for the attended benefit that America and/or your business reaped from our second-class citizenship and your insitutional racism? Trust that we as a people would likely not continue to seek reparations after that. Surely acknowledging that first would be perceived as actual contrition. African-Americans already don’t win class-action lawsuits and as an ethnic group, tend not to sue as much as whites. Reparations is not an option we’re eager to use. It’s already a long-lived but marginallized issue in black America right now. Dress it up in a healing ceremony in on come home to Jesus ceremony. The press would eat it up.

The fact that you cast reparations as a “limitless, endless and an unpayable debt” does say a lot about your own calculations about the suffering endured under slavery. A lot of people believe somebody has to fork up some loot for that suffering. If we can’t get an apology voluntarily we should sue. In as litigious a society as contemporary America is, among a people with almost more than their population living in the working class socioeconomic level or below, the idea of giving up reparations en masse is a harder sell than seeking reparations in the first place.

I hate to reduce your idea to, “You go first,” but there you go.

Liberal, QuickSilver. In September 2000, the head of the Bureau Of Indian Affairs already made a blanket apology for the BIAs role in the all sorts of Native American events and tragedies, including the Trail of Tears. He stopped short of apologizing on the federal government’s behalf – the federal governmet’s refusal to acknowledge their complicity being something we’re already arguing about. Once again, it’s an apology for wrongs done to people now long dead by people who didn’t to it personally to a proxy audience. Cite.

[Liberal]

@QuickSilver

Mine too.

But I claim, unpopularly it seems, that the RCC and Wachvia (to sight just two examples) do.

Wachovia has never owned slaves, or traded in slaves, or even maintained segregated facilities. It is said that they profited from such things. Maybe they did; maybe they didn’t. Maybe trading in slaves actually hurt the profits of the ancient companies whose progenies Wachovia eventually bought. Nevertheless, part of what’s unsettling about this whole business to me is exactly what some proponents are arguing: namely, it’s too much trouble for me, but perhaps others should be forced to do it. Why? Because Wachovia has lots of money? So what? How do we know that you or JSGoddess are not stinking rich? I wager you have enough money to trace your roots. Lots of people have traced their roots. I know mine back to a tribal medicine woman. How do I know that your family didn’t harm mine? Maybe you owe me an apology.

[you_with_the_face]

@MGibson

Sure it contributes something. Many of you don’t seem to know the difference between an apology and expressing sorrow. I don’t have to wait for someone to “demand” an apology before I denounce the concept I can do so when someone just asks for one or suggest that it should be done.

No one has even asked or suggested it should be done! You have no evidence that Wachovia was asked by anyone to apology. It looks like they just did it on their own volition. And yet you find a problem with that.

We’re just going to have to agree to disagree as I believe there’s enough of a difference to distinguish the two.

There’s a difference, but it’s not a big enough one to find one reasonable but find offense in another.

Let’s not limit it to me let’s examine why you care so much. What do you gain? What use is it to apologize?

It is good PR. It is a gesture of good will. It is an acknowledgment of wrong-doing from a past that was not so long ago.

I gain or lose nothing from Wachovia’s apology, but then again, I’m not finding fault in their apology. I wouldn’t care either way. I’ve only expressed bewilderment over how someone completely unaffected by this can muster up offense.

It’s possible for an individual to have an opinion on something he doesn’t feel strongly about. I can think it’s wrong of them to issue an apology and at the same time realize that it isn’t a big deal.

Why is it wrong to apologize? If the company feels they have responsibility, why shouldn’t they apologize? Who are you to be the arbiter of what they should say?

If my state or the Feds decided to issue an apology for slavery it isn’t like I’d lobby my representative for making it happen.

Yeah, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you started a thread ranting about it.

I have no problem admitting unpleasant truths. I just have a problem with those apologizing for actions they’re not guilty of to those who weren’t victims.

Why have a problem when it has nothing to do with you?

[Liberal]

@Askia

Liberal, QuickSilver. In September 2000, the head of the Bureau Of Indian Affairs already made a blanket apology for the BIAs role in the all sorts of Native American events and tragedies, including the Trail of Tears. He stopped short of apologizing on the federal government’s behalf – the federal governmet’s refusal to acknowledge their complicity being something we’re already arguing about. Once again, it’s an apology for wrongs done to people now long dead by people who didn’t to it personally to a proxy audience. Cite.

Due respect, the BIA may keep its worthless apology. Its incessant meddling, since its inception as part of the War Department, has caused endless hardship for Indians. Consider, for example, its establishment of Pan-Indian communities in urban areas in the 60s and 70s. More than 100,000 Indians migrated from the reservations to the inner cities, where they lost not only what little sovereignty they had, but what little dignity as well. The BIA’s promises of prosperity were as empty as their apology. Meanwhile, the reservations were left more poor and more lacking in resources than before, on account of the partial exodus. While the BIA was manipulating Indians on the one hand, the FBI was monitoring them on the other, declaring the American Indian Movement that sprang from these urban slums to be “a dangerous revolutionary organization”. Cite.

Here is your fixed link, by the way.

[QuickSilver]

@Liberal

Wachovia has never owned slaves, or traded in slaves, or even maintained segregated facilities. It is said that they profited from such things.

Which is why their apology rings hollow to me and which is why I smell PR spin. But like Askia said, “hey, maybe it’s just me.”

@Liberal

How do I know that your family didn’t harm mine? Maybe you owe me an apology.

Hold on there Kocheese, I only got here 30 years ago. My ancestors were pogrom victims in pre and post revolutionary Russia. Then there was this little misunderstanding with the Germans… anyway, this is not about me.

[Askia]

MGibson. It’s an unpleasant truth of leadership in general and stewardship of a long-existing organization in particular that you sometimes have to take responsibility for the wrongs done by agents and policies of that organization, even if they happened in the distant past. If you have a problem with that concept, fine, just don’t continue to pretend it’s silly, harmful, useless, meaningless, pointless or a lot of other words expressing futility I’ve heard casually thrown around. It makes you seem naive.

[QuickSilver]

@Askia

MGibson. It’s an unpleasant truth of leadership in general and stewardship of a long-existing organization in particular that you sometimes have to take responsibility for the wrongs done by agents and policies of that organization, even if they happened in the distant past. If you have a problem with that concept, fine, just don’t continue to pretend it’s silly, harmful, useless, meaningless, pointless or a lot of other words expressing futility I’ve heard casually thrown around. It makes you seem naive.

How about, at least in this case: disingenuous?

[Askia]

Liberal. Due respect, it takes a special brand off pissed-off to grumble about how no-one’s apologizing for the Trail of Tears and then spurn the apology of the current head of agency responsible for the Trail of Tears as worthless. You can nitpick and find fault all you want about an apology you apparently just learned about from me, but you might want to consider the positive response of the Indians who were assembled there first.

Thanks for fixing the link.

[Liberal]

Quicksilver, it seems that you and I largely agree. What was the purpsose for your jumping me? Had I offended you?

[QuickSilver]

@Liberal

Quicksilver, it seems that you and I largely agree. What was the purpsose for your jumping me? Had I offended you?

I was in complete agreement with you as well. I must have come across as disagreeable for some reason. My apologies.

[Askia]

You two lovebirds want to get back to the topic at hand or should I loan you a condom and make myself scarce? I got one left from this three pack.

[Liberal]

@Askia

Liberal. Due respect, it takes a special brand off pissed-off to grumble about how no-one’s apologizing for the Trail of Tears and then spurn the apology of the current head of agency responsible for the Trail of Tears as worthless. You can nitpick and find fault all you want about an apology you apparently just learned about from me, but you might want to consider the positive response of the Indians who were assembled there first.

The nobody referred to nobody in this thread — the people who are screaming for apologies by Wachovia. I’m already on record (a couple of years ago) as saying the BIA’s apology is worthless.

Thanks for fixing the link.

You’re welcome.