Senate's slavery apology: 'Another step'

And the right wing rants about apologies will start in 3....2...1.....GO!

That's a long way from what God says we Anglo-Saxon Israelites should be. We should be the HEAD! Gentiles should be the TAIL!

So reparations are around the corner. Then they take over the land with the mexicans.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

Being neither Right nor Left, I wonder if apologies for slavery -- however well intentioned -- are the most important concern for the U.S. Congress right now. People who are black, white, brown, yellow and red are losing their jobs, their retirements, their college educations while our lawmakers futz around with apologizing for behavior that none of us did, none of us suffered and from which none of us will benefit. How sad that the people who swore to protect us are twiddling their thumbs while the country burns down.

So reparations are around the corner. Then they take over the land with the mexicans.

Posted by: Harold Reimann | June 18, 2009 3:19 PM
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You sound angry (typical Republican), did they cancel your KKK meeting today or something, little Harold?

My families apologies are buried in Northern Civil War cemeteries. The next move will be to start discussing reparations. Enough already. If anyone needs to apologize then go find the current heirs of all slave owners and make them sign it.

The only real apologies should go to the South! And reparations too!

I wonder what position the KKK and neo nazis will take? Why the same as the GOP. Interesting.

Pete, if you have ancestors who died in the Civil War on the northern side, then you very likely have ancestors who were slave owners. At the peak, more people in the North, per capita, owned slaves than in the South.

Besides which, the Civil War wasn't fought to end slavery. Those northern soldiers sacrificed their lives to preserve the Union. The Union didn't even decide to abolish slavery after the war until 1865.

I'm European-American and my family was not yet in the USA during slavery. Also, there were 364,000 Union troop deaths in the American Civil War. Enough retributions? What was affirmative action about? Was that also not tax payer retribution of sorts? If this retribution thing happens Obama will be the first and LAST African-American president--ever. Everyone will say, see what happened--with all the money that never was. Why this at Obama's particular time? Would only the slavery states pay retribution? Are we northern states off the hook? We never profited from slavery. The laws at the time ALLOWED INDIVIDUAL STATES TO DECIDE. Will the USA, as a whole, pay retribution based on what unfortunately was legal for states at the time? Will only the families of slave owners pay? I say if more unchecked insanity is allowed, let the southern states pay the retribution with the profits from their subsidized foreign car plants. Slaves to Honda.

What about retributions to all Native Americans? And give them all their land back. Look at all broken treaties and lies by the US gov't. Don't let Holder and Obama slight any other minority group.

I thought Obama did not want to look backward. Was this another lie?

Not one red cent for reparations. Millions, however, for repatriation.

I thought Obama did not want to look backward. Was this another lie?

Posted by: Vivian | June 18, 2009 9:44 PM

Viv, what makes you think Obama had anything to do with this? This is a Congressional resolution. Oh, yeah, that's right, since Obama is black, anything that involves race is part of his master plan to get whitey.

Hey, " Vivian ", why don't you be quiet and get back into the kitchen. Have some more babies and don't even think about getting the vote !! Quit the whining !! I know you didn't like those old ways of thinking about, a woman's place !! That's what's wrong with not acknowledging past mistakes, to put it mildly !! Of course, our history is loaded with injustices, but what is so wrong with admitting to these injustices and apologizing for them? Your astute observations about the brutal treatment by, for the most part, European-Americans, of Native Americans, should be known by grade-schoolers. Should we apologize to them? Hell, yes. Should we make reparations to them? Hell,yes !! We have enough money to spend on political campaigns, to the tune of a Billion Dollars, or two, of course we should give something back to Native Americans, who we so brutally treated!! I am glad the Senate took the time to apologize to our African-American citizens, in our name, our nation. It is the right, the humane and the sane thing to do !! To do otherwise, would be stupid, ostrich-like and callous and I know, most of us, Americans, are not of that latter mind !! Way to go, Senator Harkin and our Senate !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

Well, my family has been in US since 17th century, before there was a US.
And part of the UGRR prior to the Civil War.

Gates' DNA project and the advances in genealogical research might make it possible to identify descendants of slaves.

With a view to "reparations" , among other things.

But it is really a fool's errand.

A better "apology" would be to make a more just society going forward.

Hi Don Fitz. My rant was about possible retributions. Reread. Going back to the kitchen after I braid some rugs, make soap and dip candles. Ta-ta.

Not one red cent for reparations. Millions, however, for repatriation.

Posted by: Frank Freeman | June 18, 2009 11:25 PM

So your response is basically, "send them back to Africa"?

The dry-cleaners called, they couldn't get the blood stains out of your white, pointy hood.

Carol Swain is a worthless pusher of the culture of entitlement, and a drain on her own cause. She produces hate filled swill and nothing more. Even recently she accused the republican party of being racist and blamed them for slavery, adding that a democratic senate apology doesn't mean as much. Perhaps her own bigoted views have made her forget that it was the republican party that abolished slavery 144 years ago.

Vivian, you write, "Would only the slavery states pay retribution? Are we northern states off the hook?"

Vivian, all of the original northern states were slave states. Most of them, in fact, only abolished slavery in the decades leading up to the Civil War.

You also write, "We never profited from slavery."

The North profited enormously from slavery. Forget the economic impact of one in four northern households owning slaves. The northern economy in colonial times was built on the "triangle trade," and the northern economy industrialized before the Civil War because of slavery.