The Healing Has Begun... U.S. Senate Apologizes For Slavery

Today, we celebrate Juneteenth, a day commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery on June 19, 1865. Yesterday, after 144 years, the United States Senate apologized for slavery. With a unanimous vote, America has begun her healing process. For our country will never be able to heal itself without atoning for the sins of our past. We have finally recognized that in order for us to move forward as a people in this beautiful nation, we need to acknowledge the pain that we all have suffered because of slavery. The pain has lasted for the past 144 years, and now with our government taking the right step in apologizing, I know that we can begin to heal. The effects of slavery on our communities have been devastating. The devastation does not stop because of the apology; however these are words that we needed to hear. We all needed to hear. This was a day that many of us have dreamed about for our entire lives. This was a day that many who were at the forefront of this struggle could not enjoy because they are no longer with us. And for those heroes, I go to work every day to make sure that they are never forgotten.

With my newly appointed position as the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Permanent Memorial to the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, I vow to work on behalf of our young people to make sure that we never have to feel this sort of pain again. As we all know, slavery and human trafficking exist all around the world, at record numbers. We must remember the past, however we also must work to prevent our mistakes from happening again in the future. I will work even harder in my roles as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, and I urge you all to take a moment to recognize the importance of the actions of the United States Senate. Let the healing continue...

Comments

[Chaimirija]

When is America going to apologize to women? Still no ERA...and it was not that long ago we were the property of our huuuussssb­bbbbaaaann­nnnddddsss­ssssssssss­sssssssss

[kindGSL]

Oh we still are.

The idea we are not is a fantasy they let us have until we try to test it, then we discover the awful truth and are committed to mental hospitals so others won't be infected with our mental 'disease'.

[KKojei]

You're right but you know what? Every single man ever born onto this world came here through a woman. It has long, long been time for women to exert the power of their maternity to put an end, not only their own misery, but the misery us all, men, women and especially children, male and female because the disconnect of males from the extremely important roles of women in their lives that happens because of their pubescence. Think about it.

[KKojei]

Women all over the planet, cooperative instead of competitive, who express and advocate for the protection of their sons from conscription both hard and soft, who refuse to accept plunder of other peoples casually, who make the connection between their high standard of living and the low standards of others because of a imperialistic, negatively capitalistic system

[KKojei]

CAN CHANGE THE WORLD AND MAKE IT PARADISE!!!!!!!!

[kindGSL]

Many women have died to bring you this information.

[BitterInTheCity]

when is the government going to apologize to gays? for discrimination, for making it illegal for them to marry, for firing them from serving in the armed forces, for using them as a political pawn, for ignoring aids, for encouraging hate crimes, for being in bed with the church... i could go on and on. blacks have it easy compared to gays. no one's passing laws against blacks marrying. no one's firing you from the armed forces for being black. you make a black joke and you're canned. you make a gay joke and it's hysterical. i'm waiting for an apology. but first i'm waiting for equal rights.

[Chaimirija]

man, do you have a point about being in bed with the church

[soulinit]

Well said. Being African American and gay is no picnic either. Our "lifestyle" isn't acceptable within the black church and we're shunned in our communities. Yes, being in the closet would be easier but I'm not about to lie to myself or anybody else for the sake of normalcy. Get at me Russ when you discuss homophobia in Hip-Hop.

[kindGSL]

How about potheads? You don't go to jail for being gay.

Rev Sister Lauren
THC Ministry

[elaygee]

I am the son of a slave. My father was a slave for 4 years in Nazi occupied Poland. He came to this country in 1947 and I was born here in 1956. We have as much to do with the enslavement of Africans in America as Mohandas K.Ghandi did. And, there are hundreds of thousands of African Americans who are not the descendants of slaves at all but are the children and grandchildren of Africans who came to America since 1865. The entire reparations and forgiveness proposal is unworkable and unimaginable. You'll have to trace and verify the ancestry of every single American to find out if they should be getting or contributing to reparations and there will be millions of Americans whohave no place in either category. Remember the enslavement, as it's a good thing to memorialize and consider the consequences of but after 145 years, its a little late to try and make somone pay for it. No one alive was a slaveholder and no one alive was enslaved in America. All the other reparations cases like the victims of the Nazis and the interred Japanese Americans during WWII were to the actual victims from many of the people who were alive at the time and allowed it or helped plan and execute it.
Build a museum, work to end slavery that still exists in the 2nd and 3rd world nations. Money isn't going to solve anything in this case.

[Gahiji Barrow]

I am not for direct monetary compensation. Your father was a slave for four years comparing that to this is apples and oranges. Look at the legacy of slavery in America. Compare the descendants of Jews to those of African slaves economically, scholastically, land ownership etc... Just remember your opinion is just your perception and not necessarily based on the reality of others lives and experiences.

[SJBrown]

You are historical absent.

[MyNameIsJames]

This conversation was going on long before your ancestors arrived in this nation. Its going to continue whether you like it or not. Newly arrived immigrants DO NOT get to decide the merits of a conflict that has been taking place in our nation for 400 years.

So while you may have an opinion about the situation - please note that African Americans helped build the nation (free of charge) that so many immigrants now run to for relief.

This is a conversation between African Americans as a group and White - Anglos -as a group. Both groups have been here for a long time and that relationship is still being negotiated.

Crimes against Humanity
War Reparations
Class Action Suits

and other Group to Group arrangements are often intergener­ational...­.. Just like treaties- business agreements and other legal arrangements.

This argument is NOT about 1 and 2nd generation immigrants-- it has a life much longer and more significant to the identity of this nation.

[kcopela]

You only need to read some of the comments here to realize racisim is alive and well in the good old USA. It amazes me how anyone can make comments like, "get over it" and fully understand the brutality of slavery and that the same brutality continued long after slavery was abolished. Some of the posts here actually resent the fact that this simple apology was made. Unreal.

[Chaimirija]

can we pass the ERA now?

[SJBrown]

Are you working to pass the ERA?

[Chaimirija]

well, just because someone disagrees with you does not make them a racist. On the other hand, apology should have come a long time ago, but probably did not, due to fear of lawsuits. And, finally, I am more concerned with remarks like that recent gorilla one...it is shameful that any American thinks that way, much less says something like that in 2009.

So, if you are a minority, and you hear a crack like that, about the Presidents WIFE, no less, are you really going to trust lipService?

[Brian48220]

It may be of interest to some that there are
still Americans alive today whose grandparents
were former slaves. They would have heard,
and been influenced directly, by stories of
their family member's abuse under slavery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Baines

[Cogitoe]

Mr. Simmons, you end well with "Let the healing continue..­.", but the beginning is amazingly disrespectful to generations of civil rights supporters and citizens of goodwill. You are wrong to claim that only now, because of this so easy apology, "America has begun her healing process".

[JenniferEccles]

I agree.

[AbbieXHoffman]

pendantic

[GoldsteinD]

agreed. And what about all of us whose ancestors came here after slavery?

The govt decided that slavery was wrong, 149 years ago. Many Americans died to remove slavery. Was their sacrifice denied before this apology? Are their descendants now to be saddled with higher taxes to pay reparations?

I fear this is just an argument for reparations which would be a ridiculous scam as none of the potential recipients were even alive that long ago. The Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII have been paid reparations but they were the actual persons who were injured. None of their descendants were paid anything.

[IGNSTHMD]

fallacy, (see above Brian4) so now what. this has been the main plank of dissent throughout this thread and it is fallacious, yall are just being lazy.

[Nommo]

Whenever it is that your ancestors came here, the did benefit from the wealth that was created by 250 years of free labor.

[ModernTimes1]

Very good comment, Cogitoe. To blithely disregard the progress made of AA community in the last 50 years displays an astonishing lack of perspective. Especially coming from an African American multi- millionaire.

[gwensgal]

Usually, people who blame their every failure to thrive on society and history are people who have consistently abdicated their personal responsibility for their lives and achievements. These folks have never trusted in the power of their passions and strengths to see them to the next level of success. They have allowed fear and negativity to block the way for them.

Conversely, people who lay everything at the feet of a lack of personal responsibility are insufficiently aware of the very real legacies of oppression and social persecution. These folks haven't a real enough sense of how centuries of systemic bias and persecution plumbs wears a people out, wastes its energies and talents, depletes its mental and spiritual reserves, and leaves it running on empty.

The extent to which one is personally accomplished depends a great deal upon resources of all kinds--familial, communal, individual, financial, emotional, and spiritual. Those with a healthy measure of these often invisible resources sometimes wrongly feel that their success is due only to their own ingenuity and determination. They don't realize how much they were helped by these invisible supports and enablements.

As unfair as it seems to say, in America, these supports and enablements have been apportioned and distributed according to race and class. Personal responsibility is important and ultimately cannot be overlooked. However, there are a web of interlocking factors that are just as, and in some cases more, important.

[daisy30]

I'm sure the legislators meant well, but our country is in the middle of a serious crisis. Was this really necessary? Where does it end? Let's take care of problems that are actually HAPPENING.

[freedomthrutruth]

You don't think racism, an extension of slavery, is actually happening? And you don't think your comments which attempt to obscure the suffering and misery of a people over a 400 year period constitute a subtle aspect of racism as it serves to perpetuate the kind of thinking that is indifferent to the suffering of one's fellow human beings. The problems you think are actually happening may negatively impact you, just as racism, a serious, debilitating problem, affects African Americans. Your achilles heel lies in your inability to imagine how it would feel to be black in racist America, how it would feel to be a descendant of those who could leave nothing behind for their children because all they possessed, including their labor, had been stolen from them. What has been left for you? It is quite likely that if your parents, grandparents, greatgrandparents had been slaves for 246 years right here in the good old USA, you too would be living in a ghetto today, your children would be attending substandard schools from which many would likely drop out, lots of you would be in prison, and those among you would become prime targets of the domestic police. Ah, so you don't know how any of that feels? Perceiving the material, political, and social conditions of masses of African Americans and comparing that to your own conditions, you can see white Americans have privileges they haven't earned.

[Al91206]

My perfect solution to the reparations argument - establish a trust fund STRICTLY for African-Americans to use for business loans, scholarships, etc.

I don't know the amount, but I think this is a great idea and it debunks the naysayers arguments.

Anyone else?

Al in SoCal

[Chitownfool]

I love that idea you should run for office! But I can't vote for you because I live in Chicago

[IGNSTHMD]

advocacy programs, three of em

-educational advocacy (pre K - colloge advocacy programs, interfaces with parents and schools)

-corporate access advocacy (diversification of employment pools and augmented market entry)

-ownership advocacy (real estate, credit management, enfranchisment)

[MichelleDenise64]

Are you kidding me? We needed to hear that. What we are you referring to?

[AbbieXHoffman]

It's certainly very late, but a very important thing to have done. And congrats on your new role! You're perfect for it.

[TheEnigma]

As a black male I feel this is a complete waste of time and energy. No one owes me reparations or apologies for something they didn't commit. The vast majority of people responsible for slavery have been long dead. The only affect that slavery has on the black community is what you let it. If you put it in perspective, millions of black, and interracial families would not exist were it not for slavery. Think of the people that we wouldn't have. No Martin Luther King, Jesse Owens, Bill Cosby, Frederick Douglass, Eartha Kitt, Harriet Tubman, Oprah, Jim Brown, Micheal Jackson, Micheal Jordan,...­etc. The list could go on forever.

Take yourself for example Russell. Yes, slavery was wrong. We get that. But what if you didn't exist because your family was never started if slavery never happens. There would be no Def Jam, no marriage to Kimora so you wouldn't have your 2 daughters, no Phat Farm, and many other things.

The point I'm trying to make is that slavery didn't seem to stop you from being successful so it shouldn't stop anyone else. Instead of waiting for apologies or reparations from people, the black community needs to focus on creating their own success. No one can give that to you, you have to work for it.

[wadenelson1]

Bravo!

[MyNameIsJames]

Your logic is so flawed because -- slavery and the 130 years of oppression after slavery were crimes against humanity.

You take this as an individualistic act! Your view demonstrates an infantile mind. These were group crimes - similar to war crimes and class action type crimes. No individual within a particular group can nullify what is clearly a crime against the group.

The fact, that you are comparing a group phenomenon to your highly individualistic viewpoint shows that you are not even grasping the spirit of the issue AT ALL!

You disrespect your ancestors and millions of others who were dishonored on a daily basis - its like their struggle and humilation didn't count because YOUR COMFORTABLE ASS -decides So!!!!!

Your running off a list of high profile PERSONALITIES means NOTHING in comparison to a 350 year effort to dehumanize African americans in all walks of life.

The success of these people does NOT mitigate the systematic efforts to deny African Americans their rights and opportunitities in this nation.

Just maybe your great-great-great gandparents and some of their descendents would like to hear the apology...­.

You make me laugh.

[Chaimirija]

I detected no laughing in your post

[MyNameIsJames]

It DOESN"T MATTER who sold WHO - The DEMAND for slaves who ended up in the Western Hemisphere came from Europe! The subsequent oppression and racism after Slavery came from (White) Europeans.

No one is arguing that slave catching Africans were innocent. Their actions in no way minimizes what happened to slaves and their descendants once they landed on these shores.

[calirighty]

You need to get a grip on reality. You make it sound like blacks were the only people to ever have been enslaved. I'm tired of people like you trying to blame me for something that I had no part of. No one alive today has been a slave. No one alive today has owned a slave. It's hilarious that people like you try to keep the issue of slavery a perpetual issue.

[Chaimirija]

slavery is still going on in Africa...a­re you as piisssed at them?

[Chaimirija]

tsk tsk, africans sold africans

[Chaimirija]

yes it DOES matter because you are damming all WHITES

[joli78]

kudos to that TheEnigma

[Fredrick Nevins]

As some have already mentioned your view on history and on slavery in particular is very narrow. From your logic slavery had to take place in only for the people that you named to do the great things that they accomplished. That is only backwards and immature. When you say that "salvery didn't seem to stop you (Simmons) from being successful­..." you are forgetting the entire reason why hip-hop existed and what period in time this movement followed it has direct ties to the legacy of hip-hop. If you don't realize this then I suggest you look into the history of not only hip-hop but also slavery and the effects on African and African American history.

[Dorraj]

Creeker11 I'm a Fan of Creeker11 I

It passed unanimously? Does this mean the black senators apologized too?

You mean senator. There is only one. and he was not elected.

[Poboy]

Roland Burris, IL (D)

There have been only three elected Black Senators.

1. Ed Brooke, MA (R)

2. Carol Mosley Braun, IL (D)

3. Barack Obama IL (D)

This is in the entire history of the US Senate throughout its 220 year history.

[IGNSTHMD]

Hiram Rhodes Revels (Senate)

[Dorraj]

Seriously, everyone has moved on... dont use the oppression against your ancestors over a century ago as an excuse for your inability to move on... that's a personal problem.

Wow. Slavery may be over but this country still honors these evil people. When I hear comments like this on a liberal sites, I realize again how much race matters in this country. Simmons did not say anything about reparations. FYI... Blacks continued to be discriminating badly and killed long after the civil war. How many other races had to deal with a 100 years of Jim Crow laws. My parents were not even born equal citizens under the law, which had a direct effect on the jobs they could get, which financially affected the life I had growing up. I was poor cause america did not give my parents a fair chance not cause there were lazy as some try to imply. Also simmons did not say WHITE PEOPLE of today had to apologize, he said america needed to.

[TheFriendlyAtheist]

Not only did blacks continue to be discriminated against and killed long after the civil war but it is a little known, "ignored", fact of history that slavery continued in many of the southern states until the 1940's. TR tried to get it outlawed in when he was in office but was shot down by the Supreme Court that ruled that civil rights issues, regardless of what the 13 and 14 amendments said, were a states rights matter and not under the pervue of the federal government. FDR was finally able to the the court to outlaw it in about 1942; and it was not until 1951 that Congress passed expicit statutes making any form of slavery in the US a crime.

[CVN65]

Dorraj-try taking a look at the actual numbers. White-on-black violence statistics pale in comparison to black-on-white violence numbers. A white man was beat to death by four youths last year in Philly and no mention in the national news. No mention that the "kids" are black, just that they came from disadvantaged backgrounds, as if that is an excuse for beating a man to death. They did not rob him, they did it for fun and absolutely sought out a white man. Being tough guys they took on a 140 lb man and jumped him, pummelling him until he stopped breathing secondary to a medcial condition. No Jesse or Al or anyone to raise concern or awareness or demand justice. No rush to judgement in the press-just "Nothing to see here, people". The silence was deafening. Had this been a black man beaten by four white "youths" it would have been covered like Tawana Brawley or the Duke rape case. Save your tripe for those that don't have a clue. I was also poor because my Irish grandparents could not get good jobs. I worked my own way up.

[MyNameIsJames]

Are you including White police brutality against Black males in these stats? If NOT - please lay down your erroneous statements.

[MyNameIsJames]

Irish history is full of hatred for African Americans - FULL of IT. In fact, the Irish hated African Americans so much because they were often called "BLACK" Irish by other Whites.

The Anglos - hatred of the Irish originated in the old country - don't lay that BS at the feet of African Americans.

We know about this shameful history and the difference is that things were so bad back in Ireland that millions of Irish came to the United States voluntarily. You could have stayed in Ireland.

Once you got here you wanted to prove how White you were by going after African Americans -- the only problem was you couldn't do it (one on one) so you used gangs to torment a small minority of African Americans who lived in the Northeast.

Its a shameful history - you worked your way up alright- on the backs of people worst off than you.... Now that you have become accepted as White - through the melting pot process - you can be smug and superior -except - many of us know the dishonorable history of these cowardly attacks on African Americans

Don't make me laugh.

[Nommo]

So how about you show some "actual numbers"?

[thirdclasscitizen]

Kuddos!

[SicanguWarrior]

Follow the money so to speak and see who really benefits from a discussion of apology? As a Native American, we can consult society on the many tricks used by the powers that be to humor history.

[Chaimirija]

yep