President Obama Confronts Holocaust Evil, Now Confront Slavery Evil
President Obama spoke forcefully, passionately and correctly at the Buchenwald death camp on the evil of the Holocaust. He implored nations to confront those who would deny its horror. Obama should do the same about the evil of slavery. There are two arguments against him doing that though. Then-presidential candidate Obama raised one on the couple of occasions when he was asked about reparations. He tersely said that the best way to address racial disparities is to provide more resources and programs for education, employment and health care. Blacks would be the greatest beneficiaries.
The other argument is that slavery ended nearly a century and a half ago. The obliteration of legal segregation, oceans of civil rights laws, voting rights, affirmative action programs, Oprah, Colin Powell, Eric Holder, Tiger Woods, and of course, Obama, and a big, prosperous black middle class, have erased the stain of slavery. Neither argument will wash.
Two years ago Virginia apologized for slavery. The apology was not just a matter of doing the morally right thing. The U.S. government, not just a handful of evil Southern planters encoded slavery in the Constitution, and protected and nourished it for a century. Traders, insurance companies, bankers, shippers, and landowners, made billions off of it. Their ill-gotten profits fueled America's industrial and agricultural might. For decades after slavery's end, white trade unions excluded blacks and confined them to the dirtiest, poorest paying jobs.
Though many white and non-white immigrants came to America after the Civil War, they were not subjected to the decades of relentless racial terror and legal segregation as were blacks. Through the decades of slavery and Jim Crow segregation, African-Americans were transformed into the poster group for racial deviancy. The image of blacks as lazy, crime and violence prone, irresponsible, and sexual predators has stoked white fears and hostility and served as the standard rationale for more than 4,000 documented lynchings, as well as the countless racial assaults, and acts of hate crime violence.
Many blacks earn more and live better than ever today, and have gotten boosts from welfare, social and education programs, civil rights legislation, and affirmative action programs. But that does not mean that America has shaken the hideous legacy of slavery. The Urban League in its annual State of Black America reports finds that young blacks are far likelier than whites to be imprisoned, serve longer terms, and are more likely to receive the death penalty even when their crimes are similar.
Blacks continue to have the highest rates of poverty, infant mortality, violence victimization rates, and health care disparities than any other group in America. They are still more likely to live in segregated neighborhoods, be refused business and home loans, their children attend failed public schools than any other group, and are more likely to be racially profiled on America's urban streets.
There is nothing new about state and federal governments issuing apologies and even payments for past wrongs committed against African-Americans. The U.S. government admitted it was legally liable in 1997 to pay the black survivors and family members of the two-decade long syphilis experiment begun in the 1930's by the U.S. Public Health Service that turned black patients into human guinea pigs. The survivors got $10 million from the government and an apology from President Clinton. They were the victims of a blatant medical atrocity conducted with the full knowledge and approval of the U.S. government.
The state legislature in Florida in 1994 agreed to make payments to the survivors and relatives of those who lost their lives and property when a white mob destroyed the all-black town of Rosewood in 1923. This was a specific act of mob carnage that was tacitly condoned by some public officials and law enforcement officers. Florida was liable for the violence and was duty bound to apologize and pay. The Oklahoma state legislature has agreed at least in principle that reparations and apology should be made to the survivors of the dozens of blacks killed, and the hundreds more that had their homes and businesses destroyed by white mobs with the complicity of law enforcement in the Tulsa massacre of 1921. A bill by Michigan Congressman John Conyers has has kicked around Congress since 1989 would establish a commission to study the impact of slavery and the feasibility of paying reparations to blacks.
The brutal truth is that the mainstay of America's continuing racial divide is its harsh and continuing mistreatment of poor blacks. This can be directly traced to the persistent and pernicious legacy of slavery. Nearly a century and a half later, that legacy is still very much alive and well.
President Obama condemned the monstrosity of the Holocaust six decades after it ended. In doing that he recognized that there's no time frame or statue of limitations on evil. It can still affect generations that were born years after the horror officially ended. There's nothing wrong with recognizing the same about slavery.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles Fridays on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and live streamed nationally on ktym.com
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Mr. Hutchinson,
I both agree and disagree with you on this issue. As an African-American and a descendant of slaves, I agree that an apology is warranted and frankly way overdue. However, just as I did not expect it from any president including Lincoln, I don't expect one from President Obama either. The apology should come from the House and Senate and be accompanied by a banning of all symbols of the Confederacy on any official local, state or national symbol (flag, document, building). In addition, any and all remaining buildings or properties (like the University buildings, the White House, the Capital building, numerous buildings in slave holding states) should be clearly marked as benefiting of slave labor.
I think that to hold President Obama to a different standard than any other president is not only unfair but hurts, rather than helps our ultimate cause.
No one should EVER forget the Holocaust or Slavery - every generation needs to study these tragedies so that they will NEVER happen again. So glad the President recognizes that.
There's no benefit whatsoever toward regurgitating the Holocaust for the upteen-trillionth time, not only in light of the fact that it reinforces a Euroicentic mindset that prioritized the plight of white Europeans above that of everyone else, but also due to the fact that many groups have suffered far worse and in a far greater numbers than those who perished in the concentration camps. And, insofar as the significance of this atrocity compares to that of so many genocides that have been perpetrated throughout history, the Holocaust's politically correct status as the "worst genocide in human history" has been blown way out of proportion.
Consider the 15 million civilians in Zaire massacred under the directive of Belgian King Leopold II's ivory campaign between 1890 and 1910, or the 50 million Chinese civilians who perished during the Taiping Rebellion of 1850, not to mention 32 million more massacred by the Imperial JApanese Army between 1931 and 1945.
And recently, more legitimate estimates of America's "conquest of the west" place the original native american population at a scale which confirms the original "2 million death toll" as a gross underestimation of the actual figures.
Only when the Holocaust is relegated to its proper place in history, as that of but one of a myriad of atrocities that have characterized so many different time periods, can we truly learn anything about workings of genocide and methods with whcih to prevent it.
You are currently witnessing reparations in progress; Obama's monitary policy is confiscatiing the wealth by inflation and taxation. His stimulus packages will redistribute the wealth to those deemed politically correct enough.
We are not witnessing reparations, we are witnessing the repair of our domestic infrastructure, and the return to the semblance of parity in terms of our tax code, the reviving of the middle-class, universal health insurance coverage, welfare, and what ever other social program you would like to highlight will be utilized more so by whites and hispanics than blacks, simple arithmetic.
Here's and example of what parity would look like if systemic racism affected whites to the same degree that it affects blacks
Present Unemployement rates
Whites = 8.0% @ 67% of total population.
Blacks = 12.0% @ 13% of total population.
Parity would be
White = 66% Unemployment @ 67% of Population
Blacks = 12.0% Unemployment @ 13.0% Population
The same is true for every other measure of individual achievement in America, now this doesn't imply that America is comprised of racists, it isn't, but it does illustrate that the affect of multiple generations of slavery, discrimination, prejudice, and intolerance is systemic, and required directed affirmative actions by Gov't to offset.
Unless you are a proponent of eugenics, and I wouldn't insult your intelligence by pinning that on you.
Dear Mr. Hutchinson,
President Barack Obama does not have that kind of courage. He couldn't even stand up to the AIPAC lobby and insist that the United States attend the UN Conference on Racism in SOUTH AFRICA - for God sakes!
None of President Obama's ancestry experienced Slavery in the United States. He actually rebuked Attorney General Holder's statement that the US was a "Nation of Cowards" when it comes to discussing RACE.
This statement by the Attorney General was one of the most accurate statements given so far by any official in the Obama administration.
Don't look for our "bright and articulate" President to touch this one....
President Obama is a lot more Kansas than he is Brooklyn, Gary, Detroit, West Side Chicago, - If you catch my drift.
Indeed.
Consider it another in his long line of obligatory "Sister Souljah" moments designed to appease the essence of the Republican Party, for he knows that nothing stirs the conservative mindset into a perpetual frenzy more than the notion that the United States actually should atone for the evils of slavery, hardly comperable, in their minds, to a 60 year old atrocity in which so many predominantly white Europeans had suffered.
He's the pragmatist and chief now, not the activist on the street, no one should expect the Obama to take this on as his personal gift to the historical black struggle, if citizens feel strongly that reparations are due, then it's their responsibility to formalize the research data, find an effective course of action to address the problem, and organize the broad-based grass-roots support necessary to create the political will for change. This President showed us how to do that, it's not his responsibility, or duty to force this outside of public debate while representing all Americans, his pragmatic approach however is rational and note-worthy as any improvments, to healthcare, education, or the EFCA will have huge impacts on the African American community.
I think that there's a valid case for reparations, but making that case will require a number of things
1.) Who does this apply to? (African Americans, Multi-Racial Americans, blacks with documentation of ancestrial slave status, trans-contental Africans, Hatians, West Indians, etc ??)
2.) Statistical research data that quantifies a/ the generational affect of historical racism and systemic discrimination. (Stolen property, missing wages, probated properties, economic disadvantage.)
3.) A defined time frame for concluding the affirmative actions iterated in a structural approach to paying repartaions.
Anyone feels that anyone deserved repartions as I do, should consider these points when making the case for reparations, otherwise any plan willbe eviscerated before taking its first breath.
Most Americans fully recognize that slavery was wrong and as a nation, did injustice to an entire race by engaging in this horrific practice. I don't think however, what is being recognized is the deep psychological scars left behind . To ingrain into a child's sub-conscious by blatant and subtle means that you are inferior, less than, uglier than, robs a wholesome sense of self from that child. Legally slavery was abolished many years ago however, the images of blacks portrayed as sub-human are still being perpetuated; (Magazines, movies, police profiling, and even by our own kind - in many hip hop videos)
I have pondered why 80+% of black women chemically alter their hair to make it appear long and straight like white people's hair and I think it is because deep down they have been made to believe that black hair is ugly and repulsive so they do whatever it takes to change what they were naturally born with. This is only a small example of the psychological self hatred that many black people are wrestling with.
Yes, we can discuss these matters for better understanding of ourselves as a country, but at the end of the day, just like the moderate Muslims within their own countries have to be the catalyst to engage in change, it is up to us as black people to redefine ourselves, for ourselves.... change must begin within our own minds. We must emancipate our own minds from mental slavery.
I am FOR reparations.
Our forefathers EARNED our wealth.
Whites have STOLEN it.
Whites have ENRICHED themselves USING it.
Whites have DISCRIMINATED against Blacks WITH it.
And I WANT it Back.
Why?
Because it is NOT theirs.
Why?
Because THEY have not EARNED it.
I'm sorry but you act as though most wealth was earned off slavery, when only half the country used slave labor...this also marginalizes the immigrant populations of different races that have come here, most after slavery was abolished and have enriched themselves and their families. I and my family didn't own slaves and I won't allow you to place every white person in your tilted view of the USA. We don't own you or anyone else an apology.
No one is asking you for anything. I wonder what else you might object to with regard to the uses of your taxes if you pay any at all. Slavery is free labor, and if you don't understand how the industrial North (You do know that there were slaves in the North) did benefit from that free labor, then you have no idea why the Civil War, for example.
Funniest thing about your ignorant and self righteous post is the Freudian slip there in the last sentence.
I think an honest discussion of the likes the one given to Muslims and Jews recently, is a healthy thing for our society, Although, what I find some what strange is were would Obama give such a speech in this country!
For what I understand their is not one single official museum or memorial to the African slaves, with the stature as that of the Holocaust museums here in the U.S. or abroad, or the concentration camps that are preserved in Europe !
I understand that a Museum to the African American Experience in this country is finally being established in D.C., Finally !
As a black American who has known hundreds of black people in my lifetime, the general consensus is that an apology or reparations won't fix anything. The black people I know are more concerned with the ripples of what slavery has caused in the disproportionate socio-economic status of blacks compared to whites in MODERN times.
People who would have been on the side of black people a few decades ago during the Civil Rights Movement are now the people who overuse the term "race card". Because the racism is more covert than overt nowadays, people swear it doesn't exist anymore because they don't see dogs and fire hoses on people.
I don't want an apology or reparations, I want equality. I want people to respect my ancestors for the toil and sweat that built this country. That has ALWAYS been the deal between the USA and blacks and the USA is slow on their side of the bargain. We've had to fight for every step. This makes a person consider a reparations suit when I constantly see Faux News and Friends hating on our president and contributing to the vitriol towards an already vulnerable group.
Have you seen the headline Wells Fargo story yet?
I compiled that data as a community organizer years ago and tried to tell Congress and everyone who would listen. Blacks were most certainly the targets of those sub prime loans and nobody would listen until 2009. I was trying to tell it in 2002.
Respect cannot be gained through policy, as prejudice is a protected freedom of expression (You have every right to wrongly consider yourself better than me due to my race), it is discrimination and the legislating of discrimination into law and/or the facilitation of discrimination by Gov't neglect that creates systemic inequality, and this has to be what any affirmative action or reparations directly addresses.
When minorities are labeled as playing the "race card" it's likely due to the fact that while all minorities intuitively underatand that systemic discrimination effects their lives where it does not effect their white counterparts, oftentimes they cannot articulate the (epistemolgy) of that systemic discrimination.
While most Americans understand and appreciates the negative effects of racism, currently there is not a widely-accepted formal research methodolgy which has established a structured approach to gauging the epistemolgy of sytemic discrimination in American, that is the first step.
Epistemolgy-
The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity.
Brilliant. Socialized racism is something that needs to be taken seriously as a subject and studied. Hard. Perhaps you can create the syllabus for that class because you seem to be well versed on the subject.
You were spot on about failure to articulate. I saw Professor of Sociology Michael Eric Dyson struggle to find a way to express the frustration of what I call the "invisible whip" while Pat Buchanan was shooting off his mouth on Hardball saying that black families and black fathers are failures and racism is just an excuse. M.E.D. just looked at him with that familiar "Its gonna be alright one day" look that I know so well.
Slavery was, and is wrong. Racial oppresion and racism is wrong, I'm sorry for the injustices, everyone is sorry. Now, move on with it, get over it, make things better and never allow it to happen again.
Thanks. That's the whole point. Apologies are empty. Reparations are cheap.
I'd rather for people to stop being xenophobic towards people who have different eye shapes, hair textures, skin colors, sexual orientations, and religions (or lack thereof). I'd rather people stop abusing their children, teaching them to be xenophobic and insensitive towards minorities, women, disabled people, smart kids with glasses..etc, etc. If I caught my child bullying on anybody for any reason, they'd be on a 2 month punishment and doing an apology tour they will never forget.
What astounds me is how racist people still exist and why don't people teach their children better than that in this day and age. The world is changing so fast, they are setting their own children up to be marginalized and ultimately ostracized.
Surely you can figure out something more intelligent than punishment to teach your children about intolerance? After all, that's were it all starts: in childhood. Punishment is outmoded as a teaching tool. The apology tour sounds like a good start.
I sincerly appreciate the apology on it's face, however the notion that blacks are looking for an apology for the wrongs of generations that came before us all, is a strawman argument, and neglects to consider the reality and legacy of systemic discrimination.
Unemployment 12.0+ % for African Americans
Prison Sentences for Non-violent victimless drug offenses
35% African American for the entire prison population.
Death Penalty
34% African American of all executions
Percent of persons under age 65 years without private health insurance coverage, by age group and race/ethnicity: United States, 1997-2001 (CDC)
49.8% of African Americans
Poverty Rates
26.1% African Americans
Equality does not require resolving all these over night, but rather acknowledging that this disparity exists and working together to equalize these trends across all races.
blacks are not immigrants we have been here since the beginning, but by the numbers it looks like we just came, illegally, that should sadden all Americans.
Again thanks for the apology.
Mr Hutchinson is well reasoned. Some one commented that including Native Americans in Mr Hutchinson's proposals will be good. That idea has merit. I don't have any doubt that somebody is going to comment & say that the USA is too broke to pay reperations because of the current & growing recession/depression. The USA is short of money because it funded bailout of banks, auto firms & the guy with a hot dog stand at S Ferry. The we are too broke to pay now is the mother of all false, flimsy, pretextsnot to pay this long overdue, moral, obligation.
Perhaps some trolls will give other excuses for not apologizing & paying reperations to America's Blacks & Native Americans. The excuses will be far fetched & invalid.
Mexico lost territory and it's associated wealth as did the Native American . Perhaps the Vietnamese can file a claim for the damage done in that war, or rather military exercise. Europe owes us for the costs of WWII and the keeping of the peace since then. Repatriation to country of origin of ancestors and returning of territory taken are also issues to be addressed. It'll be fun to watch.
Right now -- not more than a century ago -- there are more children women and men being used as slaves than at any time in history. They are used as soldiers, as housekeepers, as prostitutes, as miners, thieves, field hands, performers, nannies, ships' crew, sweatshop workers, toxic waste scavengers, mules, shopkeepers, artists, crafts workers, beggers and salespeople.
Young people today, who are not actively enslaved, depend upon the people around them to nurture, educate and direct them into a future that does not include prison and labor that is beneath their intellectual capacity. That means, Mr. Hutchinson, that while the institution of slavery did disrupt the social and familial bonds of blacks, IT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTINUED REFUSAL OF INDIVIDUALS TO RAISE VIABLE CHILDREN.
Reparations should be demanded -- in the form of the highest quality education, low-cost and easily accessed family planning, widely expanded mentorship and apprenticeship programs, high schools equipped with nurseries and daycare facilities, and social skills and elocution lessons from the day students step in the door.
Slavery continues. Do something constructive for the current victims, don't insist that all attention and monies that could fight such things be provided to the distant relatives of past victims.
An empty apology for an institution that was overthrown by government forces, from the monolith of governmental committees that take two years to approve the language, delivered by a man who never personally had anything to do with slavery, means nothing.
There is no impetus for confronting the present if the past is given short shrift. The question of systematic denial of access to opportunity has to be acknowledged for the damage it has done. There are no accidents. No one is asking for anything more than what was promised and what some take for granted. Equal opportunity as well as equal protection.
When denied access to colleges and universities, we created our own. This is true at all levels of education. Your suggestions attempt to address some perceived incapacity. In point of fact, the accomplishments, on all levels, of Blacks in every endeavor should suggest otherwise. The law provides for certain liberties and opportunities which have been intentionally and systematically denied to the Black citizens of this nation. This is the only thing that needs be corrected. All else will take care of itself.
There are slaves today because we have not dealt with this nations addiction to slavery.
"IT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTINUED REFUSAL OF INDIVIDUALS TO RAISE VIABLE CHILDREN."
I'll see your point, and raise you one more, it has have played a role in creating a prevalent victimization psychology which when coupled with the notions of American individualism, and universal freedoms within the context of democratic capitalism and free market-economics lead to the (Anomy) which ravages inner-cities across the nation.
In my opinion the Anomy experienced in the young African American community is directly associated with this nation's historical embrace of racism, oppression, segregation, and the subsequent denial, and systemic continuation thereof
Anomy- Alienation and purposelessness experienced by a person or a class as a result of a lack of standards, values, or ideals.
America has the highest ideals in the modern world, our constitution is a testament to our ingenuity and our grand expectations of democratic freedoms and equal protections under the law, when we preach those values, but yet fall terribly short of living up them, the unfortunate class, gender, or race that percieved themselves as being on the short end of that stick, will inherently experience Anomy.
The victim turns into an outcast, and that outcast becames a rebel to the accepted norms since, their positive aspects (individual democratic freedoms, and protections, opportunities) are percieved as not applicable to them due to race, so likewise they eventually disavow the rules that Governs what they consider a superficial reality.
So much for taking responsibility for the manners, dress, daily whereabouts, chores, diet and schoolwork of children. That's a lovely set of high-flown ideals you've got there -- very ivory tower. Not much good for getting the table set on time for dinner, though, are they?
Raising children is about slogging through a daily routine that informs a child through example and repetition. Perception is a slippery thing -- someone who enjoys the lack of responsibility that comes with perceiving themselves as a victim aren't likely to want to change their world view. Perception is also a learned thing -- when parents act out the role of victim, the children follow suit.
Poverty is not victimization. Lack of interest in bettering your life is not victimization. And the rebellion against accepted norms you speak of would, in fact, have black teens turning against a lifestyle based on drugs, early pregnancy, failed education and criminal acts. Because at present, in many communities, those are, in fact, the accepted norms. So where are the houndstooth-wearing young conservatives, rebelling against their norm?
Continued from below:
Therefore the claim that "IT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTINUED REFUSAL OF INDIVIDUALS TO RAISE VIABLE CHILDREN." is short-sighted, insensitive, and implies that the negative outcome -"not raising viable children" is only due to a "refusal" by black parents to raise viable children, what you said cannot be re-iterate differently, this is what you meant, and you should apologize for it, as it is the definition of prejudice.
Certain aspects of all races experience youthful rebellion and pushback, but generally this is just adolescent unrest, and as these teenagers gauge their aspirations for the future, relative to their current desire for "fun" and "individuality" they start the process of aclamating into productive society, now here is the point of my argument.
Do you think that the rate of aclamation would be the same if those adolescents felt that the deck was"stacked against them" in terms of aclamating into society?
I don't think so, and maybe this example will help illustrate why
A Mexican immigrant migrates here from Mexico knowing full well the Xenophobia which exists here in regards to immigrants, yet he comes anyway to work here. Why?
He knows that even given the xenophobia, his opportunities here compared to those where he came from are better, even-though there was not xenophobic pushbask against him in Mexico, his expectations in Mexico were less than his expectations in xenophobic America, and so he migrated here to achieve those higher expectations.
Continued from above:
Now, consider the 4th generation son a American slave living in an American inner-city. He is born within the same society as the 4th generation son of a American slave owner. The two sons look at their parents, then their school, then their community, and then asks what is going on here? Now how does that parent explain the variance between the two? Do they say, this is just the way things are, or blacks just aren't as successful by nature, or black people were slaves for over 200 years, etc.
One of the two parent explainations may very well create Anomy in their son, the other does not, Anomy redefineds aspirations and expectations in an attempt to over-compensate for the percieved inferiority suggested by the reality they percieve in day to day life or within a historical context. "Street Culture, Gang Identification, Mysogynism, Drug- Economics, Gangster Rap Music, anti-social behavior, black power identification, or ocasionally the desire to over-achieve, are in in part products of anomy
So in short, unless you've raised a child totally within the specific context that you so readily disregarded in your initial critique of black parentage, I don't think you have the grounds to draw an equivalency between child rearing for different groups living in different cultural realities.
To paraphrase a quote by Judge Sotomayor
"I think that a wise "African American" would more often that "Blank" come to a better decision"....in regards to the social realities and obstacles facing many black parents living in disenfranchised inner-city communities.
See that's not racist, it's all in the context.
Wonderful piece of writing Mr. Hutchinson. I wish you or someone with your abilities and exposure
would put the same fire and spotlight of moral justice to the other 'brutal truth' and 'continuing mistreatment' of another racial minority. The Native Americans, who even now lack from their mistreatment at the hands of the U.S. government and have fewer opportunties and prospects than
the descendents of the slaves.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040303122.html?nav=emailpage
The article that i wrote about below
What that argument fails to address are the deliberate attempts, through redlining neighborhoods, as one example of how Black citizens are kept from wealth. The other factor he fails to address is that of cumulative wealth, the difference between that of white families and Black families. Even Pres. Obama addressed that.
Though EOH mentioned Rosewood, he did not mention Tulsa as another example of the way whites were deliberate in their attempts to stymie any attempt by Blacks to accumulate wealth. Let there be a look at all those occupations that fell into the lap of each successive wave of immigrants. How is it that the Black people, have been here since 1619 colloquially, missed out on every opportunity? In the tri-state area I grew up and live still, the construction industry was just one that kept Blacks out for generations. How is that explained? Take a stroll by any construction site in NYC and tell me who you see working there.
Take a stroll by any military base and see who dominates the infantry. Think about it.
You're right - when and if blacks are able to own homes their homes values are much less than that of whites , which means that their children inherit less . Why - because they live in a "black" neighborhood. There has been historical red lining by banks that have kept blacks who could afford to from even buying in other areas of town, not to mention neighborhood covenants.
In addition traditional labor unions have been notorious in keeping blacks out and they have been one of the few means for people to climb up the ladder through labor.
You can't catch up up that easily when you are hundreds of years behind AND hampered by an identfiable feature like color.
I think we have to observe the past without being held shackles by it. An apology by the President on behalf of the nation would be enough in my opinion. Will the playing field ever be leveled? Doubt it, but are there things Blacks can do to ensure that more move into the middle class, yes: more education, entrepreneurship, and higher expectations of themselves. Eugene Robinson wrote a great article on the tales of two black Americas, one that has made it one that hasn't. We cant look at things in high or low ranges but in medians and means. The children of the 70s and 80s who are coming of age have the ability to change a lot because almost all the tall social hurdles will have been alleviated.
"An apology by the President on behalf of the nation would be enough in my opinion."
Do you not see what is wrong with the first black president apologizing to black people for something done to black people by white people? Doesn't it strike you as ironic that once again white folks would be sidestepping their responsibility to own up to centuries of white privilege and legally enforced white supremacy.
While reparations are certainly due and payable, maybe a better way is to bring a screeching halt (and they will screech, mark my words) to the dismantling of affirmative action programs by ending the ability to sue under Title VII claiming reverse discrimination. (i.e. New Haven firefighters). Allow the benefits of affirmative action to continue to accrue to bring about a more balanced society.
I am in total agreement.
Good to see you didn't let THIS irony pass you by Earl! I concur.
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