Formal Senate Apology for Slavery and Segregation

[detmich]

I thought Detroit was the reparation.

[Oldertimer]

No apology is necessary. One cannot use the mores on one society to judge the actions of another society. That is what is being done here. We are using our values of today to judge the actions of those who lived in different centuries under different conditions and mores. Doing so means would mean that anyone today wearing a bikini or thong should be jailed or fined because it breaks the mores of a previous society. One society cannot rejudge or pay for the actions of a fomer.

[jba]

I'm black and I say keep it... it doesn't change anything, it doesn't matter. It's best to just keep it moving and stop wasting money and resources on this.

You are right MrCrush.....Everyone [[all colors) suffered in someway, Everyone is sorry. Saying sorry ain't changing anything...Lets keep moving forward and forget it.
Only ones that want to remember is politicians who want more votes and people who want to hate something...

[Baselinepunk]

"go back and read your history books>
slavery was a world wide problem and america did its best to bring it to an end!
I am proud that we as a nation pursued this action!"

Holy full of shit, Batman!

The part of America called the USA was the absolutely last nation to get out of the global slave trade. Southern plantation owners [[and other slave owners) lobbied Congress hard to keep slavery legal, citing [[paraphrase) "horrific economical affects due to increased labor costs on the cotton farms". Bastard southern slave owners tried to fear the public into thinking that if slavery were illegal, savage black men would roam the countryside raping every white women [[even little girls) that they could find. Oh the horror!

IMHO, slavery was ended in name only during Lincoln -- it finally ended in the 60's facilitated by the civil rights movement.

The government takes the hit and sez the apology regarding its role in past unacceptable government policy. If there were legislation requiring all descendants of slave owners to personally pony up some cash and/or required a public apology -- I'd say get fucked. However, the government is only apologizing for its role in the situation, not implying all present "whiteys" are to blame. It makes y'all who think they don't owe anyone anything sleep well at night, cuz you get to blame [[again) the Man.

Hey, I'm a mutt of many cultures and colors. Slavery was and is a fucked thing. I'm [[empathically, not responsibly) sorry it happened. If there is anything I can ever to make sure it never happens again and that all US freedoms and laws apply equally to all cultures, I will -- as a citizen of this country, that's what I feel I personally "owe" to the descendants of slaves and all other marginalized cultures.

The US government has always been involved in crappy shit regarding people of different cultures. If the government can be humble and make amends with people of Asian descendants for the internment camps during WWII, the US government is well in line with being humble toward US citizens of African descent.

Further, I think that the African countries and tribes, whose Chiefs betrayed and sold their own people into slavery, and the religious [[Muslims and Judeo-Christians) organizations who participated in the slave trade, should be called upon to create a humble stance as well. This is a horrible period in the last 300 years of world history and it's not going to make anyone any less, or better, if the they and US government apologizes.

It's called common ground, people. Let's get used to it and use it to get past shit that holds all of us back.

[RickBeall]

I'm glad that our government is working so busily on our current problems.

[Baselinepunk]

If you do not think that racism and discrimination are not current problems, then I kindly offer to you that you get your head out of your ass.

[Ocean2026]

Blacks who would rather sell and smoke crack and use excuses for the various criminal activity that they engage in way more than other races, need this apology to feel good. Fine my ancestors weren't around then - they were in Russia. Sure ok we are sorry, slavery was wrong but in those days "Survival of the fittest" ruled. Blacks do the same stuff in Africa today.

Now its the Black'r turn to apologize for the billions they have cost us in crime - murder- drug trade way above other ethnicities. Take responsibility and stop whining about something over 150 years ago!

[Bigb23]

Ocean2026 You've been trolling on this forum for way too long. Give it up. You want to speculate in real estate up here, maybe as an absentee landlord. Stay in your manicured oceanfront property, and leave this forum to the people who care.

Blacks who would rather sell and smoke crack and use excuses for the various criminal activity that they engage in way more than other races,
Now its the Black'r turn to apologize for the billions they have cost us in crime - murder- drug trade way above other ethnicities.

[Ocean2026]

Bigb awwww you don't like opinions that differ from yours - too fking bad! Then you lie too as I said I never want to be in the landlord business- but hey just list your criminal record for us.

[Retroit]

I'm outraged! I think that it is a downright shame that the Senate has been enslaving African-Americans! I demand their emancipation immediately!

[Bigb23]

but hey just list your criminal record for us.

I stole a candy bar from Lincoln Drugs back in 1965. When my mom found out, she marched me in there to apologize and pay for it.

[alsodave]

Nice to see that Ignorance Pride Day has its own thread...

[Bigb23]

Blacks who would rather sell and smoke crack and use excuses for the various criminal activity that they engage in way more than other races,
Now its the Black'r turn to apologize for the billions they have cost us in crime - murder- drug trade way above other ethnicities.

Bigb awwww you don't like opinions that differ from yours - too fking bad! Then you lie too as I said I never want to be in the landlord business- but hey just list your criminal record for us.

Now we know you for what you are. Thanks Ocean 2026.

[Bigb23]

You are a lawyer, correct ? Maybe nows the time to pursue a different line of work.

[ejames01]

What an asshole.

Blacks who would rather sell and smoke crack and use excuses for the various criminal activity that they engage in way more than other races, need this apology to feel good. Fine my ancestors weren't around then - they were in Russia. Sure ok we are sorry, slavery was wrong but in those days "Survival of the fittest" ruled. Blacks do the same stuff in Africa today.

Now its the Black'r turn to apologize for the billions they have cost us in crime - murder- drug trade way above other ethnicities. Take responsibility and stop whining about something over 150 years ago!

[detmich]

"go back and read your history books>
slavery was a world wide problem and america did its best to bring it to an end!
I am proud that we as a nation pursued this action!"

Holy full of shit, Batman!

The part of America called the USA was the absolutely last nation to get out of the global slave trade. Southern plantation owners [[and other slave owners) lobbied Congress hard to keep slavery legal, citing [[paraphrase) "horrific economical affects due to increased labor costs on the cotton farms". Bastard southern slave owners tried to fear the public into thinking that if slavery were illegal, savage black men would roam the countryside raping every white women [[even little girls) that they could find. Oh the horror!

IMHO, slavery was ended in name only during Lincoln -- it finally ended in the 60's facilitated by the civil rights movement.

The government takes the hit and sez the apology regarding its role in past unacceptable government policy. If there were legislation requiring all descendants of slave owners to personally pony up some cash and/or required a public apology -- I'd say get fucked. However, the government is only apologizing for its role in the situation, not implying all present "whiteys" are to blame. It makes y'all who think they don't owe anyone anything sleep well at night, cuz you get to blame [[again) the Man.

Hey, I'm a mutt of many cultures and colors. Slavery was and is a fucked thing. I'm [[empathically, not responsibly) sorry it happened. If there is anything I can ever to make sure it never happens again and that all US freedoms and laws apply equally to all cultures, I will -- as a citizen of this country, that's what I feel I personally "owe" to the descendants of slaves and all other marginalized cultures.

The US government has always been involved in crappy shit regarding people of different cultures. If the government can be humble and make amends with people of Asian descendants for the internment camps during WWII, the US government is well in line with being humble toward US citizens of African descent.

Further, I think that the African countries and tribes, whose Chiefs betrayed and sold their own people into slavery, and the religious [[Muslims and Judeo-Christians) organizations who participated in the slave trade, should be called upon to create a humble stance as well. This is a horrible period in the last 300 years of world history and it's not going to make anyone any less, or better, if the they and US government apologizes.

It's called common ground, people. Let's get used to it and use it to get past shit that holds all of us back.

Please. Just. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

[Retroit]

Please. Just. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

I think the Senate should apologize to Baselinepunk on your behalf.

[Baselinepunk]

LMMFAO @ Re and detmich!

What's the matter, detmich? Gotta a hankerin` for those old golden, "country, mom and apple pie" years of the 1950's?

[Omaha]

As a Colbert Conservative and Social Darwinist, I believe that apologizing for stuff you didn’t start makes NO sense. Let me give you an example of this concept: the U.S. didn’t start the practice of torturing prisoners [[torture dates back before 1776), therefore when we do it, there is no need to apologize for it.

Some may call me an ostrich for my beliefs, but just because discrimination in the form of chattel slavery [[owning people as property) is honored in the Constitution and was critical to the nation’s economic success doesn’t mean that I directly or indirectly benefitted from the practice.

Nor do I want the government apologizing for the kind of discrimination [[Black Codes and Jim Crow) that was clearly constitutional after the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and which were officially OKed by Plessey v. Ferguson. The fiction of separate but equal [[in all aspects of life north and south) may have benefitted whites and especially the rich and well-born, but I am sure that those who benefitted worked for every bit of their success.

And sure there were federal programs that discriminated against blacks in hiring before and up to the change brought on by the troublemaker A. Philip Randolph during and after WWII . But hey, live with it. The positive impact that those discriminatory programs had on some [[but not all) white families isn’t important in the big picture. More white families being able to afford college for their kids while blacks had to work at the few jobs they were allowed to work at is likewise tough luck. No apologies needed.


Then there was the way that government programs redlined housing loans and steered whites away from certain integrated neighborhoods and blacks into certain segregated neighborhoods is likewise…just tough luck. Did that de jure segregation negatively impact schools in segregated areas? Only if you believe Brown v. Board of Education. And even if Brown was correctly and unanimously decided by the Supreme Court, how could segregation really negatively impact the lives of those who were discriminated against? How could it open doors for those who were privileged? It couldn't. That is just as crazy as implying schools in Bloomfield Hills are better than those in Detroit.


Furthermore, legally paying black employees less than white employees for identical work until the passage of the Equal Pay Act couldn’t possibly have had any negative impact on family life. Sure the limiting of jobs and lesser pay rates may have led to black families to need two or more breadwinners when most white families only needed one…but there are no studies about the negative effects of kids raising themselves because parents are away from the home working that this Colbert Conservative knows of.

How could any of those policies impact the lives of those who were discriminated against? And even if they did, there could be no remaining effects today.

This is a nation where the playing field is even enough for everyone to be a success if they just work hard enough. Look at our esteemed POTUS. Starting with a head start no matter how big or small shouldn’t matter.

Just because my great grandfather didn’t have to compete with say 10 percent of the population for good paying jobs may have given my father an advantage that blacks didn’t have, so what? My father going to college because his family could afford it and because he didn’t have to compete with others for admission who either didn’t graduate high school or couldn’t afford the tuition or couldn’t afford not to work full time may have given him a leg up on the competition, so what? And my opportunities for success may have been increased being raised in a family with a father who had a college education opened doors that weren’t open to those without the education, so what? And likewise for my kids and their kids.

No, the idea of apologizing or even admitting that government policy tolerated and promoted discrimination is ridiculous. Reparations in the form of special programs [[which could act as reparations) for the discriminated against is likewise BOGUS. Every thinking Colbert Conservative and Social Darwinist knows that government handouts are NEVER hand ups. Government programs like the G.I. bill just make people dependent on the government and reduce personal initiative. All you got to do to understand this is look at the number of poor whites who are related to those who fought in WWII. ‘Nuff said. I have proven my point and there’s no rebutting it.

[Downtown diva]

i think reparations are in order. If I were a calkasian woman I would be able to earn three times what I do, and wouldnt be subject to half of the things I have to at work.

Reparations could help me out alot.

[Bearinabox]

i think reparations are in order. If I were a calkasian woman I would be able to earn three times what I do, and wouldnt be subject to half of the things I have to at work.

Reparations could help me out alot.

So could spellcheck.

[ejames01]

These people are late to the party. I received my reparations years ago.

[Sludgedaddy]

Man, I'm still waitin' for my City of Detroit Income Tax return from 2008.

[gibran]

Forgiveness is just recognizing that we have a long way to heal to wounds-of our generations...in fact if you have never seen a tree that was used to lynch a human just sixty years ago standing in a courthouse lawn.maybe you don't understand...humans have always done destructive things to each other..still happening today..and apology and forgiveness is the first step in helping keep the genocides, ethnic cleasing in our councious...

we have to understand the suffering of others to prevent the suffering of our childred and their children..if not, if we cant's see that horrors of descrimination, just look to the middle-east and see what the desire to have pure states causes.

[Sstashmoo]

"calkasian"

Definition: One from the orient, specializing in winterization techniques.