Why are we apoligizing for slavery??

Question

When i heard that congress issued an official apology to all Blacks, i was aghast, and infuriated!

I dont beleive in racism, and maybe what our forefathers did was wrong, but i feel like its wayy out of line to apoligize for our past, and our heritage. WE never owned slaves, so why are WE apoligizing?!?

This whole idea seems ludacris to me...

any thoughts?

**and no, i'm not a racist**

Answer 1

i agree, does it matter to you?

no ones asking you to act out being ripped from your homeland in chains, packed like sardines onto a ship and treated like an animal for the rest of your life. so dont worry about it.

it does however mean a lot to descendants of slaves all over the world, so just go along with it :)

Answer 2

You are right. I agree.

Answer 3

You are right, you are not responsible for slavery.  You're not the one apologizing.  The government in the other hand was responsible for it and as an entity it is deciding that it feels like the right time to apologize.  It's really the government that is apologizing, not the people in the U.S. so don't be so upset.  The government as an entity hasn't "died" so you could think of it as a 232 year old person which has done many things in history.  Some were good and some were bad.  Did you know Ronald Reagan authorized for the descendants of the Japanase families that were sent to the imprisonment camps to receive a 20K check back in the eighties?  Most people then weren't responsible, but the government was.  If the government feels guilty about is actions, then I don't see why it can't apologize if it wants to.  Personally, I don't apologize either, but I'm not the government and I'm in no way linked to slavery or anything else our government has done.  

Answer 4

Planksheer: i live in the south, and I can tell you that the Confederate battle flag is simply pride in being born in the south. It is in no way connected to slavery. Most confederate soldiers were fighting over STATE'S RIGHTS not slavery!

And my personal opinion is that the government is apologizing to this MINORITY of african americans to shut them up. Most blacks that I know don't feel offended on a personal level that there ancestors were slaves. Heck, I am a white man whose ancestors suffered at the hands of hitler in world war 2, put i don't feel as though the modern-day, democratic german government owes ME an apology.  

Answer 5

More than half of the families living in America are descendants of immigrant who came here AFTER slavery ended, that includes people of all colors. This is like that reparation BS. Enough is enough!

By the way Joan L, the Pope was a n**i when he was a kid. He should apologize.

Answer 6

DARK MAN DARN STOLE MY TV

Answer 7

wtf does it matter?

Answer 8

lol if your not racist you wouldn't make a big deal out of this

Answer 9

I have to agree with you on this. Its simply stupid! I never owned a slave, so why the h**l should I be held accountable for slavery?

Answer 10

Your government apologised for slavery because your government supported slavery. Don't worry, you don't have to apologise for owning slaves or supporting slavery.

You do have to apologise, but for a different reason: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privi...

Answer 11

Because we did wrong, it's the same reason the Pope apologized to the Jewish people for WW 2

Answer 12

I think you are a bit confused.  Your government is apologizing, not you as a people.

Your government failed to recognize Africans as anything more than property for over a hundred years and it is now basically issuing a statement that it was wrong in that act.  

Answer 13

I agree.  Why do I have to apologize for something I didn't participate in and either did my ancestors.  

Answer 14

What I am MORE mad about is the fact that blacks (browns, chocolate, whatever word that won't make them get mad at us for using) aren't apologizing for all of the things that THEY have done to our society over the past hundred years....And as I can recall,  Black people were the first to have slaves in the first place,   and their slaves were BLACK!!!

It was all just to make "peace",  plain and simple.

Sorry if this sounds racist but it is the DARN truth.

Answer 15

i agree!

Answer 16

Its simply a civilized move to apologize for history like people wrongly accused in the past who have died can still get a pardon. Its not like they are saying to black people alive right now they are saying sorry because in a sense the same government the one of USA is saying sorry for its laws which allowed slavery on their soils. They didnt say sorry when slavery was abolished and yet haven't so its good they will now and you must either be racist or have white guilt to have a problem about this. Are you and fellow white being forced to say sorrry?? No so why protest against a move which has taken this long to be done well your forefathers should of said sorry and you wouldn't be asking this question

By the way jews indian etc were not enslaved in the US at the same mass as black people

PS Mississippi only ratification the Thirteenth Amendment March 16, 1995, after having rejected it on December 5, 1865. Meaning they only formally agreed with the abolition of slavery in 1995

Its a good thing they are apologizing and you aint no better than a black American complaining about slavery you complaining about the government which never acknowledge it was wrong till now that they will formally apologize if you understand what that means I do and im only 17

Answer 17

you are right, everyone forgets that it was the blacks that sold them to begin with ! there own people sold them for profit. in today's time we had nothing to do with it.move on everyone !!

Answer 18

While we are at it, someone should apologies for burning all those witches at the stake, oh and the holy crusades, where they killed everyone not christian.....and to all the jewish people for the Holocaust...jeez the list goes on....it's just stupidity, I don't know why we are apologizing, for it, because african americans will always complain about it anyway, so what is the difference?

Answer 19

People today are still living off profits made for free off slaves backs (Just like the Bush family is still living off profits made from the business deals his grandfather, Prescott was making with n**i's, Arnold Schwarzenegger's father was linked too  - they never apologized for that!); I don't think it's a big deal either way - it's just an apology, not a check or a casino. Plus, blacks were extremely mistreated long after slavery was over as well, and in some cases the mistreatment is still going on.

Answer 20

Um because people were used like animals...They were brought here on a disease infested ship and were tied down with the scent of f***s and death in the air; forced to obey the rules of people who saw them as nothing. Blacks were considered to be 1/3 human beings.  It's easy for you to say it is not a big deal...you were not in the situation.  

Answer 21

Should we?

Be grave- diggers of past failures and horrors of different time zone?

Luke 9.25,55-56,60

Look in the real world.

Was it not the messed was created  with self lack of knowledge back in the past?

Was it not a new civilization was only created after world war two?

Look how those so-called descendant of past slavery.

Did their descendant became a "Better man" in time?

Were they still slave today?

Then where did all those successful children all came from?

Did they all dropped off from the coconut trees?

What if they were still left behind in Africa?

Will they be better than what they are today in time?

Luke 6.39-40,41-45,46-49

What do you think?

Answer 22

You're right it's ridiculous and besides slavery was started in Africa anyways!!BY AFRICANS!! It's a proven and known fact and it's even in history books.I'm not a racist either but I think they should shut the h**l up about it.And especially since the people who gripe about never actually even were slaves!

Answer 23

The problem with conservatives is their tunnel vision.  They only see what is good about America and fail to acknowledge its flaws and historic shames.  We should freakin appologize to the Vietnamese and the Native Americans too.  Not really WW2 though because we were attacked first.    

Answer 24

I agree with you. That's why I hate the term African-American. It only applies to a certain color of skin, and most African-Americans have never been to Africa. Further, if I come from South Africa and move to America, and I'm white, I'm not allowed to be an African-American (see Theresa Heinz Kerrey). Further, how come we never hear the term African-Canadian or African-British?

Do I feel bad about slavery? How can I be expected to? I had nothing to do with it!

Democrats will be democrats.

Answer 25

Doesn't bother me one bit. Its overdue.

Congress is doing allot more than that. Spending a few moments with words is about the LEAST amount of harm they can do.

Answer 26

I don't understand either...It won't change anything. The people today were not the slaves...they were never slaves...so why apoligize to them? Because they are upset that their ancestors that they never knew were slaves? Well my ancestors went through wars and famines because of the wars and I ain't pissed about it. Everyone needs to get over slavery...it was a thing of the past and there is nothing we can do to change it now.

Answer 27

What is wrong with apologizing?  From the Fugitive Slave Laws to the Dread Scott Decision to Plessy V Fergusson, for well over a century the US held to a doctrine that supported the belief that blacks were inferior to whites.

We OUGHT to applogize.  What is this going to cost and where is the negative impact ?  As for apologizing to Vietnam - we SHOULD.  

We got into that war the same way we were misled into Bush's war in Iraq.  Wars started on false pretenses based on lies are immoral.

My only problem is this apology is 140 years too late.  You don't think there are issues arrising from injustices stemming back 10 generations or more ?   Go to ireland.  Go to the Balkins.

And why is the Confederate battle flag revered to this day in the South?   I think you know the answer.

Answer 28

Well our current government may not have been directly involved in the owning and usage of slaves, but hey, now we know better. A lot of black people have ancestors that were rocked by slavery.

At the time, many white people did not think that what they were doing was wrong. They had never seen black people before, much like blacks had never seen whites before. In fact, it is a little known fact that some white people were actually made slaves to blacks in northern Africa!

If you did something that you thought was alright, then later found out that what you did was horrendous, wouldn't you apologize for it? This is simply a courtesy by our government. It's called MANNERS!  

Answer 29

I just need 2 points