A long overdue apology.....

[Klukie]

I offer my heartfelt apologies to all African Americans for the enslavement of your ancestors and all of the sufferings of future generations that enslavement has caused. I stand with you in the struggle for equality and reconciliation and I promise to teach my children love and respect for all people.

All my love,

Jenny

[El Pinko]

1. You enslaved African-Americans, and yet you call yourself a progressive?

How did you enslave them, considering slavery has been illegal for 140+ years?

[Klukie]

2. Progress is achieved when mistakes are recognized and set right.

I am most definitely a progressive.

[El Pinko]

5. I liked the second part of your statement.

"I stand with you in the struggle for equality and reconciliation and I promise to teach my children love and respect for all people."

That is fantastic. But unless you participated in slavery or discrimination, I don't see what you have to apologize for. Sympathize, yeah, apologize? No.

[Klukie]

7. I know that I didn't personally enslave anyone......

however I feel that the only way to fix a problem is to start at the beginning. An apology represents recognition of the injustice and immorality of the action. I didn't have a hand in it personally, but I have a responsibility to make amends.

[Jed Dilligan]

29. The privilege a white person is born into was built in part on slavery.

Until the field is truly level we all have a hand in it no matter what our actions, which is why it is important for all of us, not just some of us, to work to level the field.

[El Pinko]

40. Let's assume that a poor white is somehow in a better position than an average black...

...both of them are on a whole different field (more like a swamp) than the people of real privillege - the wealthy, whose field is is atop a hill accessible only by helicopter and surrounded by barbed wire hurricane fencing.


Sorry, but the notion that ALL whites enjoy this great privilege mostly comes from white-guilt-addled bourgeoisie white liberals who think all whites gre up in Leave it to Beaver land like they did.


Oh, and these idiotic white-guilt apologies cost nothing, mean nothing, and accomplish nothing. They sure as hell don't level any playing fields.

[Jed Dilligan]

44. If you use poverty to absolve yourself of your duty to struggle against

racial inequality, you are more guilt-addled than anyone I know.

[El Pinko]

46. The only "duty" I have is to struggle for the needs I think are most desperately unmet.

And I think poverty and the wealth gap between rich and poor (regardless of color) are far more pressing issues than racial issues, which are more of a problem of individual behavior and cultural memes than institutional racism anymore.

The widening gap between rich and poor IS institutional - it has been government policy for almost 30 years.

You can take that guilt shit and shove it. Leave it to a bougeoisie liberal to say ANYTHING to keep poor and working-class whites and minorities divided from each other.


More proof that the white liberal bourgeoise are little more than the self-righteous lap dogs of the robber-barons.

I don't feel guilty at all - but wealthy liberals who have jettisoned class and labor issues from the democratic party's platform in resent decades and replaced them with feel-good PC nonsense that accomplishes nothing real or concrete should feel guilty.

They only want the kind of "progress" that costs them and their wealthy friends nothing in the pocketbook, but want to pat themselves on the back for meaningless gestures like "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and UNPAID family leave, and giving auto companies an excuse for forcing all new-car buyers to pay an extra grand on every car for an air bag. Meanwhile the rich continue to get richer, jobs continue to get shipped overseas, and more and more working people fall into poverty and nothing, except a 10-year overdue raise in the paltry minimum wages is ever done.

And again, exactly what did the bullshit "apology" in this OP accomplish? I'm sure it brought tears to the eyes of the few black readers who participate in such a bougie forum. :eyes:

[Jed Dilligan]

47. I don't particularly care for the OP's approach

But I do think everyone, white, black, rich, or poor, has a role in the struggle against racial prejudice.

I'm not a big fan of the kind of bourgeois liberalism you're describing, and I also believe that the gap between rich and poor is one of our biggest problems.

I disagree with you wholeheartedly on this point, however:

"...racial issues, which are more of a problem of individual behavior and cultural memes than institutional racism anymore."

There is still racial injustice on a structural level, by any measure that you care to use.

[El Pinko]

48. I appreciate that concession.

And I hope you'll appreciate that some of us have other priorities.

If there is a ballot issue that will help eliminate racist policies or discourage discrimination, I'll vote for it.

I voted for Obama in the primaries - and hopefully as president he would work against discrimination and go a long way towards changing attitudes.

But I'm still much more interested in pressing whoever the next president is into jettisoning NAFTA and the othre trade and tax laws that are destroying this country.

And I do NOT like Obama and Hillary's pledge to not raise taxes on incomes over 250K. People making 250K are the top FIVE PERCENT of income earners in this country and have enjoyed THREE DECADES of tax cuts as deficits and inequality have soarede.

They need to start paying their fair share, and the winfall should be used to ameliorate the effects of NAFTA etc. until we can get industries that employ people at living wages back in this country.

That pledge is a glaring a representation of the cluelessness of the rich liberal as anything I can think of. Obama and Hillary ACTUALLY THINK that people making $250k are "middle class".

When the top 5% are being described as "middle-class" by DEMOCRATS, we have real problems.

[Jed Dilligan]

49. I'm not asking you to put in long hours as an activist.

Just learn, think, and do the right thing when the opportunity arises. It will.

[El Pinko]

50. I was a bit confused by all these "race" topics today, but I just turned on CNN...

...and I see they are again going after this pastor, Rev. Wright. So I guess that's what it's about.

I personally didn't disagree with any of Wright's comments (except the one about HIV being made by the government to kill black people - that one is a bit farfetched and completely unsubstatiated).

Clearly that have put Obama in a touchy political position, and I understand both Obama's need to distance himself, and also Wright's annoyance at Obama's behavior.


I suppose you could point at this as an example of that racism you cite.

If this was 2000, and Bush's preacher had said some slightly racist crap (maybe said "colored", or waxed nostalgic for the confederacy or who knows what), I seriously doubt that it would have become such a big deal, because as a society we seem more frightened of the remnants of black militancy than we are of the remnants of white supremacy. Hell, It's only been a few years since Strom Thurmond served in the senate, and there is STILL a former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan serving - in the democratic party, no less.

[Jed Dilligan]

51. Very good analysis.

If you stay out of GDP, I can see how the racism threads popping up all of a sudden might have confused you. As I said in my locked poll, for the last few days the forum has turned into a racist concern troll freakshow.

In addition to the double standard applied to politicians and their pastors, there is also a great deal of quantitative evidence of structural racism in education and law enforcement.

By the way: Trailer Park Boys rules!

[El Pinko]

52. I hate GDP.

It amazes me the amount of rancor that can arise between supporters of two nearly identical center-right candidates. I really don't care which of them gets the damn nomination. I just want that mess to be OVER.

And yeah, TPB is a great show - I've seen all 7 seasons and both movies. I can't wait for the next season to start. Too bad they only make like 7 to 9 episodes per season.

[ashling]

31. Could you apologize for that picture on your posts?

It freaks me out.

[CBGLuthier]

18. Shit on him why don't you

I am glad you use such a distinctive picture .

It makes it easier to track your shitty comments.

Oh and guess what, while it may be illegal it still goes on. Even in america.

[El Pinko]

21. You talking about wage slavery? Millions of whites are wage-slaves too...

...busting their butts for $5 an hour....

Poor whites and poor blacks are both struggling. I won't say they are in the same boat because there are clearly still cops landlords and bosses who discriminate, but porrr whites can also be vicitms of discrimination based on their appearance or accent.

Nobody who has grown up dirt-poor and white would make the BS argument of white privilege. Being slightly less discriminated against, but still basically treated like shit by society is not a "privilege".

[CBGLuthier]

22. no fool

I am talking about slavery slavery.

It still exists, mostly against third world immigrants, but it still exists.

[El Pinko]

25. So they are being kept against their will and not paid?

This is news to me...

[CBGLuthier]

26. Yes, I imagine it would be

There was a trial, about six months ago involving immigrant women who were kept as slaves.

[El Pinko]

28. That's an individual case - some German woman was also kept in a cellar for 24 years.

That is not institutionalized slavery, not is it in any way condoned by the culture or the law.

The weak are often preyed upon by the unscrupulous, but this has little or nothing to do with the culpability or lack thereof of all American whites.

[warren pease]

33. More news to you... 21st century US-sponsored slavery in the Pacific and right here at home...

Here's some unusually decent reporting from CNN.com on the sheer awfulness of modern US imperialism, how that translates into slave labor -- particularly on Saipan in the Marianas Islands -- and its deadly effects on the lives of any "little people" who happen to stand between profits and the slobbering, voracious jaws of the corporate monster.

Here's how Tom DeLay -- former professional bug killer and presumed victim of long-term exposure to brain-melting chemicals -- puts lipstick on this particular pig, according to CNN:

According to law firm records recently made public, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, paid millions to stop reform and keep the status quo, met personally at least two dozen times with DeLay on the subject (killing a proposed bill to extend US labor law protections to workers in the Northern Marianas Islands, including Saipan) in one two-year period. The DeLay staff was often in daily contact with Abramoff.

DeLay traveled with his family and staff over New Year's of 1997 on an Abramoff scholarship endowed by his client, the government of the territory, to the Marianas, where golf and snorkeling were enjoyed.

DeLay fully approved of the working and living conditions. The Texan's salute to the owners and Abramoff's government clients was recorded by ABC-TV News: "You are a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system."

Later, DeLay would tell The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin that the low-wage, anti-union conditions of the Marianas constituted "a perfect petri dish of capitalism. It's like my Galapagos Island."

"... a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party." Amazing what comes out in those rare moments of unguarded candor, larynx lubricated by a little of the local brew.

As if there's much doubt about the driving principles of the US corporate/GOP imperialism partnership: "If you're in the club, your life will roll along on a vast, gently flowing river of money. If you're not one of us, tough shit. We'll figure out how to make your short, miserable, meaningless life useful to us anyway. Profits uber alles!"


Closer to home...

The Bush government encourages and therefore engages in the practice of slavery. Here's an interesting piece regarding slavery in North America today. Leaving aside the idea of "stop loss" troop deployment extensions, which is as a blatant and obvious a form of forced labor (i.e., slavery) as you'll find these days, consider the Bushies' mad dash for the economic bottom, here and abroad, and how zero labor costs are the logical result of Malthusian theory as well as the wet dream of rapacious free-market renegade capitalists everywhere.

In addition, what would you call a country in which about 1 out of a 100 people are in jail and where the burgeoning, largely privatized prison-industrial complex houses the ultimate cheap labor pool? The nationwide average prison wage is currently $.22/hr. which is as close to slavery as you can get. And they do all kinds of stuff, from furniture making to telemarketing. And of course this cottage industry couldn't survive, much less thrive, without the encouragement and favoritism of federal and state governments.

Is racism involved, too? Well sure it is, this being America. As of late last year, blacks comprised about 12 percent of the US population, but nearly half (48 percent) of the US prison population.


Slavery: It's not just for the plantation anymore.

Modern slavery overseas in capitalist hellholes like Saipan is no accident. It's better understood as a key element of US imperialism as organized and carried out by corporate America and its employees in the federal government who grease the skids for them.

These days, slavery's just a bit more subtle than in the plantation economy and, of course, it's unreported by any US mass media outlet. Therefore, as far as the American public is concerned, it doesn't exist. And because it doesn't exist for these people, it would be weird if they sat around discussing it.

American obliviousness notwithstanding, white Americans practice it still, as do people of just about any color, ethnicity or culture. Google Saipan, Nike, Abramoff, Delay, Marianas Islands, made in USA and any other combination you can think of that pulls up sources of information on how US clothing and apparel manufacturers use "indentured servants" as laborers to raise profit margins to the roof.

Piling outrage on top of outrage, laborers must pay their travel expenses to The Marianas islands, and then pay some more to the factory bosses for the privilege of securing jobs in their notorious sweat shops.

Here's an excellent piece by David Swanson that explains how the whole scam works, who gets rich and who gets screwed. Decide for yourself if this perversion of the global economy meets the standard of slavery.

These workers, mostly young and desperate women from China, and some from the southeastern Pacific islands, are de facto slaves because they're not paid enough (if they're paid at all) to ever be able to pay off their indenture bonds. They work 12-hour shifts -- or longer -- for pennies a day.

They have no access to health care unless it's to fix a problem that keeps them from working at 100 percent efficiency. Pregnancy is unacceptable, and is not covered by the pathetic health care system. They're left to deal with it themselves, so risky and potentially lethal do-it-yourself abortions flourish.

They quickly learn that they'll never get off Saipan legally. They experience systemic hopelessness, leading to high suicide rates.

Driving labor costs as close to $0.00 as possible equals more cool private jets for Nike's Phil Knight and the rest of the rulers of the slave-based manufacturing economy they've set up. But they couldn't have done it alone; they had friends in high places so they got a lot of help and complicity in the form of favorable legislation and suspension of various anti-exploitation regulations, courtesy of the GOPiggies who've kindly seen fit to grant their employers in the campaign contributor class carte blanche to go absolutely fucking nuts and import the entire feudal system into the 21st century.


Finally...

If you haven't already, you might consider reading two of John Perkins' books: "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and "The Secret History of the American Empire."

Disgusting but informative, particularly for anyone who still harbors any illusions about what this country stands for today, and has obsessed about for the past 170 or so years: The continued expansion of markets, plundering cheap sources of raw materials and the endless growth of wealth and power for the ruling class. Anyone else can go to hell -- particularly anyone whose labor or land can be exploited in service of the great American profit machine.

USA! USA! USA!...


wp

[El Pinko]

35. Yes, I'm aware of that - near-slavery with a nicer name - "globalization"

What the robber barons are doing to people in the Marianas and the third world is disgraceful - and I suppose that people who shop at Wal-Mart are somewhat culpable in that. I try as best as I can not to participate in that, but there's a limit to what I can do as an individual...

[Ishoutandscream2]

3. Being a middle aged, white, male; I too want to make this assertion

We can't forget the travesties that have occurred. I still think we have a great country, but we have done some awful, awful things. Including enslaving a race of people, and even when "freed" discriminated against them through Jim Crow laws and other forms of injustice (yes, even in the north). And of course, we can't forget how we have treated the original occupants of this land. And also the radical and overt bigotry that continues to haunt our citizens of the GLBT community.

I, too, am sorry for these horrible atrocities that our country has inflicted on those of color. We must never, ever forget.

[El Pinko]

4. I personally reject group culpability, especially for events that took place 150+ years ago.

I never enslaved anyone or discriminated against them, and as far as I know, neither did any of my ancestors (and even if they did, I would reject culpability for their actions, which I had ZERO say in).

And who is "we"? Are African-Americans not a part of this country in your mind?

Slavery was wrong. Jim Crow was wrong. Racial profiling is wrong.

And so is the notion that people who had nothing to do with any of those things should have to apologize, simply because they are of a given color.

I do feel like I might apologize to Iraqis for our president bombing and murdering hundreds of thousands of them for no reason - because my country supposedly elected him and reelected him and therefore I would feel the need to apologize for my fellow Americans who voted to keep killing Iraq.

Some people in the slave trade were black. Should THEIR ancestors apologize to the ancestors of the OTHER blacks for enslaving them?

Do you not see how asisinine the idea of hereditary guilt is?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

8. If some white guys commit a hate crime in 2008...

Nobody would expect me, as a white guy, to personally apologize for their behavior.

So why is it that if white guys committed a hate crime in 1830, somehow I'm supposed to accept personal responsibility for it.?

[Two Americas]

10. hereditary benefit

Would you deny that all whites to some extent enjoy hereditary benefits and privilege?

Why is one lone voice acknowledging guilt and taking responsibility to be attacked as "asinine, when we have a massive number of examples every day all around us of hereditary privilege and benefit?

Saying the Jim Crow was wrong and that slavery was wrong costs you nothing, and is self-contradictory. It is to place the issue of racially motivated hatred and murder and exploitation over there, to circumscribe and limit it, to tie it up in a neat and tidy little bundle that you can then toss away and keep separate and powerless. That is a clever way to deny the existence of racism, not to acknowledge it.

You want to blame others over there and back then purely to deny any responsibility for yourself today.

It is easy today to claim to be against Jim Crow and against slavery, just as it was easy in the 1850's for apologists for slavery to be against the already abolished slave trade, and so fancy themselves to be progressive on the issue.

Your post is mean-spirited and dishonest and self-contradicting.

[El Pinko]

12. Yes I would definitely deny that all whites in the US enjoy hereditary privilege.

Please walk in the shoes of the average Appalachian a while.

I think it's mean-spirited to expect people to apologize for something they had nothing to do with.

Maybe you grew up with a country club membership and a housekeeper - not anybody I grew up with.

[Two Americas]

19. ok

Then we will try walking in the shoes of an African American in your Appalachian town for a while. We will then have an accurate basis for comparison.

[sandnsea]

11. European nobility

It all stems from that. Until we acknowledge that we are, in fact, a very class-based society and always have been, and that we constantly degrade people based on finances and ethnicity, we won't be able to perfect this country. We can't even admit the class antagonisms we have, let alone the rest of it. That's the point. It's like breaking your leg, never mending it correctly, and thinking there won't be any difference in the way you run. It's absurd. We've got to face the past.

[Klukie]

6. Thank you for that.....

I am very surprised that more haven't stood up. We should never be too proud to apologize for injustice.

[sandnsea]

9. I concur

I wrote about this several years ago. In a country such as ours, we shouldn't be surprised at the lack of outrage over Iraq. Until we admit to ourselves what we've done, change will never happen.

"Liberals should truly not be surprised, or even disheartened or discouraged. Our entire history is checkered with wars of aggression, barely disguised as self-defense. Indian Wars. Mexican-American War. Spanish-American War. Philippine War. Vietnam. The appropriate response to the Iraq War would literally require the entire country to undergo a death-bed conversion. It is a tall order, one that our most esteemed clerics and orators have been unable to achieve."

[El Pinko]

13. We were all living and hopefully voting when Bush decided to murder Iraq.

So we all do share some responsibility for failing to stop it.

Slavery is different, since only an white elite owned slaves, and they have all been dead for 100+ years.

[sandnsea]

14. It stems from the same notion of European nobility

and supremacy. Until every US citizen sees that, wars like Iraq will never stop.

[El Pinko]

15. European nobility - also a small elite, a fraction of the population.

All Europeans responsible for the abuses and crimes of the European nobility over the centuries? No.


Recognizing that something happened is one thing. Apologizing for it is another. I will NEVER apologize for something I had zero say in.

[sandnsea]

16. Do you enjoy the freedom of the Revolution?

If you claim the good, you have to claim the bad.

It's like those in the south who fly the Confederate Flag and say its to honor their "southern heritage". Uhm, slaves built the south. Flying that flag is a strange way of honoring what slaves accomplished.

Until we own our entire history, we will never heal.

[El Pinko]

23. No, I don't. I think what Americans call freedom is a sham, for all but the wealthy.

We're supposed to feel so lucky because we don't need a chit signed by the block captain just to see a movie like they do in North Korea.

But we never compare ourselves with truly free and prosperous nations like Norway or Sweden, where people from all levels of society can get healthcare and a decent standard of living.

People that fly the Confederate flag are racist scumbags, whether they admit it or not, but I don't see what that has to do with this topic.

Many of the idiots flying that flag are the same dirt-poor whites that the rich whites have pitted against blacks since reconstuction to keep the underclass divided and weak. To me, that's part of what the "white privilege" argument is all about.

Rich white liberals divide by telling poor whites how they are recipients off "white privilege", which of course would enrage anyone barely keeping a roof over their head.

Then Rich white right-wingers divide by raising the specter of the "black criminal" or the "illegal alient", appealing to poor whites' misguided notion that although they may be at the bottom of the heap, at least there is still a class of person "beneath them".

As far as I'm concerned, our country will not heal, or even function, until poor and working-class whites, blacks and people of ALL colors unite to overthrow the rich and mostly-white elites (I suppose I have to stipulate that it would be non-violently, but I really don't care how it comes about).

[sandnsea]

30. Liberation Theology, you got it

The oppressed vs the oppressor. I'm white, I'm not taking personal responsibility for the oppression done by past generations, or by the current ruling class. I am taking responsibility to teach others that it was, and still is, being done. Get the difference?

[Breeze54]

20. Actually, poor white farmers and ranchers also had slaves. n/t

[El Pinko]

24. Most poor people did not own slaves. Most didn't even own land. Many whites were essentially slaves

Remember indentured servitude?

[coriolis]

17. Why would you apologize for something you had nothing to do with?

That's stupid.

[Karenina]

27. Should German children be taught about the Holocaust?

[woo me with science]

32. Should German children be made to feel responsible for it

and apologize?

[sandnsea]

34. If they haven't made it right, yes they should

If I'm not mistaken, there is still the matter of money and goods stolen from Jews. Yes, today's Germans are responsible to make it right. They're also responsible to prosecute the guilty. And they're responsible to continuously educate as to the sociology that created the Hitler movement, and never let the world forget.

[Karenina]

36. Thank you.

[coriolis]

42. So you think money will make it all better?

:eyes:

[Jed Dilligan]

45. They should also be hosting the nation of Israel IMO

instead of the Palestinians. Imagine how much better the world would be.

[coriolis]

41. Certainly. What is your point?

:eyes:

[BigDaddy44]

37. I would like to apologize to the decendants of Abraham Lincoln...

For John Wilkes Boothe assassinating him. No, I'm not actually related to John Wilkes Boothe, but I do feel much better now.

[Klukie]

38. Well if you feel better I guess that is all that matters.....

the reality is that is not just about you, but if you were able to see that then maybe you wouldn't have to use disingenuous analogies to make your point.

[BigDaddy44]

39. Was I unclear?

Although I do feel better, it was mainly for the benefit of the descendants of Abraham Lincoln who were egregiously harmed by the actions of John Wilkes Boothe.

And why is this a disingenuous analogy?

[coriolis]

43. It was a perfectly legitimate analogy. Not that it matters to some DUers.

:eyes: