“Sorry for the slavery”: US issues formal apology for racial oppression but is it too little too late?
Jul 31st, 2008 by Ashok
It’s about time.
WTF were they doing all these centuries?
Too little too late.
And similar responses come to mind when reading about the formal, official apology issued by the House of Representatives (Congress) to black Americans for slavery.
No mention of reparation to the families of stolen, kidnapped, tortured, maimed, murdered, raped, uprooted and otherwise oppressed generations of African Americans over the past centuries. No word of recompensation for the wrong done to them. Not even a whisper of admission that the entire nation’s economy, culture, prosperity was all built first on land stolen from the brutally massacred indigenous people (Native Americans), then developed by slave labour (African Americans) and then driven to its position as the foremost nation of the world through the efforts of numerous immigrant communities (Asians, Hispanics, etc) to make the America of today.
But at least it’s a start. Hopefully, now the dialogue will begin. And the history of oppression on which the American nation is founded, so long denied and kept hidden–often glossed over or even ignored completely in school textbooks and even in formal histories–will be brought out into the open so every white American can acknowledge the debt he or she owes to the non-white people his or her ancestors exploited so that the present generations can enjoy a lifestyle that the majority of non-white citizens in USA can only dream of.
You can read about the official story here as well as on every US newspaper’s website and all the major newswire services.
