Why, "It wasn't me" is not good enough

[53NewYorker]

Here is an interesting editorial on the recent Virginia apology for slavery. Since it addresses one of the reasons I've read in several threads here, I post it for feedback:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/opinion/21fish.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Does that mean that Georgia should apologize, too? Not necessarily. The question is a political as well as a moral one, and it is not my intention here to answer it. All I am saying is that while there may be good reasons to resist apologizing, the “we didn’t personally do it and those it was done to are dead” reason isn’t one of them.



*Please note, the NYT has made this article a 'select' article now and the link is no good.

[big john]

well, i wish I could appologize for slavery,but there is no way I can,Iv'e never owned a slave.

[58ford]

My family didn't get here till the 1870's, so bit me.

[Augustus McRae]

I've never understood the "apology" deal. It basically fills a need for the "apologizer" but I'm not sure what. There are very, very few Black people alive today who even KNEW anyone who had been a slave, so "to whom" are these folks apologizing? There are many areas of our life in which we find it appropriate to say "I'm sorry" to those around us. But "slavery" - I just don't get it.

Georgia DOES need to apologize - for Jimmy Carter's presidency, not for slavery.


Here is an interesting editorial on the recent Virginia apology for slavery. Since it addresses one of the reasons I've read in several threads here, I post it for feedback:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/opinion/21fish.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[Fish-Bait]

Slavery sucks, especially if your a slave. I dont own any slaves, no reason here to apologize to the ancestors of a slave. WTF I get so tired of this junk...its want want want. Apologize to me for having to listen to this stuff all the time

[58ford]

What about people who were anti-slavery whites, and fought to free the slaves.
Shouldn't some Black leaders stand up & thank them?

[Hermione]

I have one branch of the family from West Virginia and one's first and middle name is "Ulysses Grant" so I'm reasonably sure none of them were slaveholders. I imagine most of the others were too poor to own slaves (like most people in the South.) What does the apology plan have to say about free blacks who owned their own slaves?
The best apology we can make for slavery is to help end it in our own time. There is rampant slavery going on TODAY in the world. Let's focus on what we can actually affect.

[Augustus McRae]

My people were poor-ass people who share-cropped WITH slaves and former slaves - like the VAST majority of people in the South. Who's gonna apologize to my forefathers for paying them 25 cents a day at the sawmill or the cotton gin and ONLY letting them spend it at the "company store?" Not a dang soul, nor should they! It's HISTORY - we learn from it, we do better, we move on. If it still exists in our world (as Hermione suggests), we get rid of it.




I have one branch of the family from West Virginia and one's first and middle name is "Ulysses Grant" so I'm reasonably sure none of them were slaveholders. I imagine most of the others were too poor to own slaves (like most people in the South.) What does the apology plan have to say about free blacks who owned their own slaves?
The best apology we can make for slavery is to help end it in our own time. There is rampant slavery going on TODAY in the world. Let's focus on what we can actually affect.

[ynotme297]

i don't hear any for all the native americans that got slaughtered. most of them still live in squaller, low income, on drugs and a short life span. i don't hear them crying and pulling race cards all the time. they too were put into slavery. this really pisses me off.