Pajamas Media

149 Comments

1. caestal:

My family never owned slaves or supported slavery, and some of them fought against it and have continued to fight for freedoms of all Americans. I don’t feel any need to apologize for someone else’s ancestors, even if they were of similar skin tone to me…

Jun 20, 2009 - 2:31 am 2. RightwingHippyChick:

We should browbeat the Italians to apologize for what the Romans and their evil empire did to all of us.

Jun 20, 2009 - 3:09 am 3. kywrite:

And what about the tens of thousands of Native Americans who were enslaved, some beyond the end of the War Between The States — and who suffer prejudice to this day in some parts of the country? The Chinese who were brought here to work on the railroads, or to work in the sex trade in San Francisco flophouses?

Or people who are of mixed ancestry? People who have African ancestry but don’t even realize it? Blacks who once enslaved other blacks in America? (google American Heritage Magazine: Selling Poor Steven) People who emigrated here from Africa and never knew slavery — or those who came here after the War Between The States from Europe and other places? Will they participate in any quids or quos in the coming reparations fight?

For that matter, was not the blood of 600,000 Americans, nearly all white, reparations enough? Or should the descendants of conscripted Irish immigrants who died in that war also be granted reparations, for that and for “Irish Need Not Apply”? There’s plenty of pain to go around.

We are supposed to be a nation of many people, many cultures, all coming together to be Americans despite our differences, indeed using those differences to make us stronger. How insane it must appear to recent-immigrant Indians and Indonesians and even Africans, America’s obsession with a war that ended 150 years ago, and with social conditions that ended a half-century ago.

But then, if the issue of slavery suddenly disappeared from the chart, what would the condition of blacks in America be accounted to? Never the welfare state that ruined the rising tide of black prosperity and stability that, against all odds and barriers, peaked in the 60s, then plummeted to lows never seen in American black culture previously. Nah, couldn’t be that.

Jun 20, 2009 - 3:11 am 4. Patrick of Atlantis:

Why was it unanimous? Is there not one Senator who sees this apology for the manure that it is? Do they all lack integrity? Obama bows to the slave holder king of Arabia and those tools in the Senate are making apologies for when it was in America scores of years ago;and never mind the 1/2 million white men who died on the battle field to put an end to it.

Jun 20, 2009 - 3:14 am 5. Patrick of Atlantis:

P.S. It has just occurred to me that the Slavery Apology has an insidious mean of discrediting the founders and framers of the Constitution. The founding fathers are the true target of people who are driving this apology. It is depressing to see that every Senator was beguiled by it. As a nation we are lost.

Jun 20, 2009 - 3:28 am 6. ridgerunner:

When will the Congressional Black Caucus apologize for the 100-year war on white citizens waged by black criminals? Per capita, Black-on-White crime is nearly 40 times greater than White-on-Black crime. Where is the apology for this continuing atrocity?

Jun 20, 2009 - 4:12 am 7. TomF:

Maybe an amendment to the resolution would be appropriate that honors and thanks the whites who gave their lives in the civil war to stop slavery. I know that in Southern schools kids are taught that it was about succession, but there is enough evidence that slavery was a prime issue. At least Lincoln thought so.

Jun 20, 2009 - 4:36 am 8. Steve:

Well said Roger.

I’m glad that you addressed this because this another attack against white people with the intent being further intimidation and more institutionalized discrimination against the white people of this country.

When are we going to get an apology from Muslims for enslaving white Christians for centuries? Included in that group would be American sailors by the Barbary (Muslim) pirates.

Muslims were the wholesalers in the African slave trade. They still enslave these people. Black Christians are being slaughtered and enslaved by Muslims as we speak. What good would an apology be when you’re still practicing slavery?

But it doesn’t matter because the perpetrators of these inhuman crimes are not white. They are brown or black. What good does that do for Jesse Jackson, Louis Farahkan, Jeremiah Wright or Barack Obama?

Jun 20, 2009 - 4:42 am 9. ridgerunner:

If you doubt the magnitude of the difference in per captia inter-racial crime, follow this link.
http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.pdf

Jun 20, 2009 - 5:01 am 10. bill-tb:

Why should the party of Lincoln, you know, the guy who freed the salves, apologixe for the party of the KKK, the Democrats and all the Jim Crown laws they passed?

As far as I am concerned the debt was paid in full, long ago, in blood.

Jun 20, 2009 - 5:15 am 11. Mike Murray:

I completely agree.

Politicians love to apologize …for OTHER people’s sins.

See: They’re So Sorry, posted at http://emmeffemm.com/id154.html

Jun 20, 2009 - 5:30 am 12. Rose:

This is the first step to reparations. Affirmative demagoguery.

Jun 20, 2009 - 5:37 am 13. David Thomson:

This is simply another example of race guilt—which is destroying Western Civilization. Apologies have long ago been made. Our politicians are now engaging in overkill. And most assuredly it will further “retard race relations.” Citizens of color are inadvertently encouraged to feel sorry for themselves. Also, our politicians—and voters often do stupid things merely to prove they are not racists. This plays right into the hands of the radical leftists. The intellectually shallow Barack Obama is president primarily because of race guilt. A white man possessing his weak resume would have been eliminated in the first month of the nomination process.

The Democratic Party, in its heart of hearts, has no interest in improving race relations in the United States. It wants to constantly rub the wounds raw and making sure they never heal. Race guilt helps Democrats gain and keep power. That explains everything. It is very fair to describe Democrats as unwitting racists. Only conservative Republicans truly wish to get past race.

Jun 20, 2009 - 6:05 am 14. Gary Ogletree:

I’m all for reparations for my ancestors’ valuable “legal property” confiscated by the terrorist Sherman in Georgia. And I’m all for West African nations to pay reparations for the people their ancestors kidnapped and sold into slavery. And I have a long list of grievances against the British Crown for wrongs committed against my Scots and Irish ancestors. Never mind that I won the ultimate lottery, being born in the USA.

Jun 20, 2009 - 6:21 am 15. Sebastian Shaw:

Pandering. Bill Clinton gave a similar speech about slavery in 1993-1994; this is almost the same thing except Congress has apologized.

Why? I have never owned slaves. The Democrats & some Republicans look like spineless swine as usual…

Jun 20, 2009 - 6:28 am 16. sheesh:

Somebody once asked Louis Armstrong, “What is jazz?” He said, “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.”

I’m with Satchmo.

13. David Thomson . . . “Only conservative Republicans truly wish to get past race.”

Right again, as usual.

http://www.whereistheoutrage.net/wordpress/2009/06/15/gop-and-racist-images-of-the-obamas/

Jun 20, 2009 - 6:47 am 17. LeighB:

Well alright then. Now that the Senate has apologized for slavery, and we have all agreed to move forward in a positive way, can we get a few more apologies from them? Apologies seem to be all the rage and I guess the Senators were not content to have the President do all the apologizing.

In no particular order, please consider apologizing for your vote for the stimulus bill, also knows as intergenerational theft and stupidity act. Not sure what it is stimulating, perhaps you can weave that into the apology. Can you also work on a group apology for not asking the current administration tough questions? Or any questions?

Jun 20, 2009 - 6:48 am 18. Delia:

This admin just can’t have enough race-baitin’ and YT-Guilt.

Unfrickin’believable.

Remember, black and brown people, you are VICTIMS.

Remember, white people, you are THE ENEMY and RACISTS.

Pfft!!!

Jun 20, 2009 - 7:17 am 19. Steve:

“This is the first step to reparations.”

First step?

We’ve been discriminating against white working and middle class people for over three decades.

Non whites get mortgages, jobs, promotions and the like for which the are not qualified when compared to white people.

Reparations against European Christian Americans is just going to a new level of hate. When will we fight back?

Jun 20, 2009 - 7:21 am 20. Telly:

Let the Senate speak for themselves. Since my family migrated here from Russia in the early 20th century and were Russian serfs at one time in our history, I don’t feel guilty or that I owe any apology to blacks at all, much less reparations.

If America is going to be a nation that recognizes and loves diversity, perhaps it should consider that not all white Americans have a background of enslaving the ancestors of today’s black Americans. Some of us have ancestors that were slaves ourselves, yet I’m not expecting Vladimir Putin to send me a check in the mail anytime soon.

Jun 20, 2009 - 7:32 am 21. wildman:

Never owned slaves. First generation slavic. did not choose my parents. did not chose my race. i don’t owe anyone anything. If the liberals feel guilty, let them apologize en mass. If the goal here is reparations, those who take it must leave the country, give up their citizenship and be gone from us. Please take the liberals and democrats with you when you go.

Jun 20, 2009 - 7:59 am 22. IP 727:

It is obvious that the purpose of this cluster foxtrot piece of bravo sierra is to set us up for “reparations”.

Jun 20, 2009 - 8:07 am 23. Bohemond:

I demand an apology from the Province of Normandy, pronto! You think they get a free pass for 1066? No, dammit! We victims have rights!!!

Jun 20, 2009 - 8:37 am 24. Blackwater:

Instread of focusing on slavery in America that existed almost 200 years ago, let’s focus on blacks and Christians and others still being enslaved and monstrously abused by muslims and other groups to this very day. Arab muslims are enslaving, raping, beheading and torturing hundreds of thousands of black Christians in Darfur and Sudan. And I also think we should concentrate on racism that still exists to this day. And frankly, I’d place white racism against other ethnic groups way at the bottom of the list because let’s be honest. White people have dealt with their past demons probably more than any other ethnic group. You never hear phrases being tossed around like “arab guilt” or “hispanic guilt” or “asian guilt” or “muslime guilt” etc. Only “white guilt” and “Christian guilt”. Racism is still very much alive and unchallenged in many other ethnic groups and in islam all throughout the world. For example, one of my best friends was murdered by illegal aliens from Mexico simply because he was white and his girlfriend was hispanic. This was only 2 years ago. So racism and hate crimes are still very much with us today. It just isn’t being carried out by whites anymore. Maybe we should concentrate on fighting against these racist and bigoted people that still exist rather than the suburban white soccer mom and dad who probably voted for Obama. White people have largely owned up to and apologized for past behavior for several decades now. However I don’t have a problem with the resolution. There should be others from other ethnic and religious groups apologizing for their past wrongs as well. Like for example when Obama apologized to the Egyptian muslims while in Cairo for past European colonialism and imperialism. Perhaps the Egytian Preisdent and government should say the same to European Christians since Egypt was occupied by European Christian empires for a grand total of 40 years while muslims occupied Greece for example for over 400 years which didn’t end until the late 1800s. And maybe he could make the point that European Christians didn’t use these past atroctities to justify cutting muslim tourists heads off, flying airliners into buildings and suicide bombing train stations unlike the muslims sickly have done. But like that’s ever going to happen…

Jun 20, 2009 - 8:45 am 25. sjc-tx:

This government DOES NOT speak for me…

I think someone is putting something in the water supply of D.C. It’s unfathomable all the pure garbage coming out of this administration…

It’s pure idiocythat this is even a topic, after all these years!

I guess 600,000 dead is not enough blood for meeeeshells bitter tab.

Jun 20, 2009 - 9:00 am 26. William:

If anyone should apologise for slavery, it should be the Arabs (original African slavers), the Portugese (brought first African slaves to Europe),the British (under the Treaty of Ultrect in 1713, all slaves brought to the Americas were to be carried in British ships) and the Spanish (only about 10% of the Africans brought to the Americas ended up in the US, the rest went to Central and South America to Spanish colonies.)

Jun 20, 2009 - 9:04 am 27. Delia:

Throwing ‘money’, ‘housing’ and ‘pity’ at people does them absolutely NO GOOD. Look at what welfare has done for black families. Look at what the public housing slums have done for black families.

If every person asked for reparations for past discrimination or cruelty, every single one of us would have a grievance we could relate.

People can make jokes about almost every ethnicity but blacks who have been getting ’special’ treatment and ‘pity’ for long enough to destroy them rather than actually ‘help’ them.

Sometimes refusing a hand-out or a ‘bail-out’ can make one stronger.

Jun 20, 2009 - 9:09 am 28. David Adams:

The so-called apology is more an insult to Black Americans than anything else; instead of speaking on how we overcame the obstacles of the past to rise in prominance in many fields and how the Black American middle class has steadily grown since the ’50’s when I was a teenager, the ‘apology’ lumps all Black Americans into a victim class of hopelessness and self-pity. I don’t need an ‘apology’; I was never a slave and I will not be a slave to race hustlers or phony politicians.

Jun 20, 2009 - 9:37 am 29. Michael:

“And what about the tens of thousands of Native Americans who were enslaved”

And don’t forget the so-called Native Americans who owned black slaves.

The last battle of the Civil War was fought between Indians. Granted it was really an internal dispute but it was fought under the Stars and Bars, and the Star Spangled Banner.

Jun 20, 2009 - 9:57 am 30. Stevemmn:

Whites made the slavery and Jim Crow laws years ago and blacks were the victims, so this is obviously a case of whites apologizing to blacks. It is ironic that this apology came with Obama as president.

Obama is half black and half white, so does that mean Obama would apologize to himself?? And Obama doesn’t have a drop of African American slave blood in him, in fact his African ancestors were slave owners. Obama’s case is a perfect example of the insanity in trying to apologize for things that happened 140 years ago when the perpetrators and victims are both long dead and there are no longer any clear cut lines between perpetrator and victim.

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:05 am 31. john from cinncinatti:

i am all for reparations…to anyone who was a slave, all others kick rocks. this is old news why bring it up. the white/black issue is the only issue that has traction. please let it go. hey don’t we have a zambo for a president. does his wife beat him up for being half white. is it only half his fault.

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:05 am 32. Self-hating Boomer:

Wasn’t The One™ supposed to usher in the new post-racial era? Did that end up under that bus, too?

Ever since inauguration, it’s been all race, all the time.

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:05 am 33. Don:

It’s curious that for eight years all we heard was ” Save Dar Fur Now” from the democratic jet set as we struggled in Iraq, but now that Iraq is winding down and the democrats control congress and the White House nothing is mentioned anymore about Dar Fur. Democrats are always in the lead when it comes to pedaling reparations for Jim Crow, but they never volunteer to pick up the iconic AK47 to save the children in Dar Fur. I guess it’s more fun attending London concerts against global warming, now climate change, than humping the sand in Sudan. Hey, Michael Moore, American Express, never leave home without it!

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:13 am 34. C:

I agree with much of what was said here. I don’t want this apology either. All I ever wanted is acknowlegement that my ancestors had something to do with making this country what it is beyond being slaves. I also would like to be given credit for accomplishing what I have through. Hardwork and dedication. I did go to school on an affirmative action scholarship, but I earned my 3.89 gpa. Some of you need to keep in mind that most people of color in professional fields are highly qualified and for every story you produce about how some poor white soul was denied a promotion because an unique qualified peson of color got your job, I can produce one of a person of color who was overlooked because the white guy had a friend in the right place.

P.s. If some idiot wants to give me a reparation check, I’tale it and start a scholarship fund for first ten to college kids. That is the number barrier to college success anyhow.

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:35 am 35. Dave Surls:

“apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States”

This people is NOT apologizing.

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:37 am 36. CJ:

Hmmm…I am a naturalized American citizen, so are my brothers and sisters. I am from Venezuela. My parents, my siblings, my children, my wife who is from Mexico have NOTHING to do with slavery. So, why are my government representatives apologizing for stuff that no one in my family alive today OR my ancestors had anything to do with?

Shoot, while these idiots are it, why aren’t they apologizing for all those poor whites that could only come to America through endenture servitude, right? Pay off a filthy rich aristrocrat from Europe who was coming to America through slavery who paid your way to come to America. What was it, you had to give the aristrocat seven years of your life as his/her slave in order to pay off your ticket.

Why aren’t African tribes apologizing to each other for selling each other to Europeans for slavery? If the Africans wouldn’t have sold each other into slavery guess what…no slavery.

Africans had horrific wars, the loser was ensalved by the winner. When the Europeans went to Africa, the tribes sold their slaves to the Europeans. Hmmmm…so, why do Americans and Europeans have to apologize and not Africans?

This is your typical feel good, politically correct stupidity. Another way to keep the race issue front and center. Another way for politicians, from both sides, to put a wedge between the people. Hey, divide and conquer, right?

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:40 am 37. river:

I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this as yet, but Theodore Dalrymple’s “False Apology Syndrome” also deals with this problem in a very neat way.

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:42 am 38. CJ:

Muslims, the Muslim world, are the largest owners of black slaves through out human history. Why aren’t blacks, why aren’t Liberals, why aren’t Democrats demanding that Muslims pass reperations, why aren’t demanding that Muslims apologize to blacks?

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:43 am 39. HonestJon:

I sincerely hope that the reparations debate can get underway forthwith. The sooner, the better! That will bring to a head all of the racial favoritism that’s endemic in the black community.

Blacks fought against segregation. Now they self-segregate en mass. They resisted slavery. Now they’re enslaved to welfare-peddling Democrats and their own perceived victimhood.

Bring on the reparations debate! If it comes about, Obama will be our first and last black president. He’ll only be President for one term, as well. I can’t wait until new poll numbers come out after this “congressional apology” hits the MSM. I think Obama’s Titanic just hit an iceberg!

regards

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:48 am 40. Aureliano:

So does this mean that contemporary Blacks have to thank the United States for not being in Africa?

And yes, this means Obama has to apologize to himself.

Jun 20, 2009 - 11:13 am 41. jvon:

Actually I am glad that the Democrats finally got around to apologizing for supporting slavery.

As for me personally, my ancestors were still in Europe while all this slavery stuff was going on here. The only possible “guilt” I might have is because of the color of my skin. Trying to hold me accountable for what other white people did seems a bit, I don’t know… racist?

Jun 20, 2009 - 11:29 am 42. GlobalObserver:

My family on my mother’s side arrived in America in Georgia as indentured servants.

We never had the opportunity to own slaves.

Perhaps the Senate should apologize to us for never having had the opportunity to apologize.

And another thing, how many non-black Americans have relatives that were living in what are now the 50 states before the 1880s? If your name ends in “ski”, or you have Italian blood, or if your grandparent’s native tongue was Spanish your forefathers were not even here during slave times.

If your relatives settled in the North, they most likely did not own slaves.

What percentage of Americans alive today had relatives who were slave owners? Probably more blacks than whites had those relatives.

If so, shouldn’t blacks be apologizing to themselves? If their bloodline includes slave-owners they should demand a self apology!

I didn’t pick my forefathers, nor did they, but if I can’t escape culpability for past transgressions in my family tree they should not get a free pass either.

Jun 20, 2009 - 11:34 am 43. Dr Strangelove:

What else would we expect from the guilt-ravaged members in Congress? Oh, and yeah, as others have stated…the people running the show in D.C. absolutely do not speak for me.

Jun 20, 2009 - 11:37 am 44. Maewynia:

I read recently that the first slaves sold in Jamestown Virginia were a group of Scottish women and children. Hmmmm….? That’s MY ethnic background. Those are my ancestors. Now where do I go to get my reparations check???

Jun 20, 2009 - 11:39 am 45. joeblough:

It’s a sick religious ritual demanded by the cult of liberalism.

Or as Aldous Huxley put it in “Ape and Essense”, Condign punishment for having been punished.

Jun 20, 2009 - 11:42 am 46. daveinga:

the u.s. senate has become the proverbial “ship of fools” for today’s misguided miscreants. populated largely by lawyers who, like their never born president, couldn’t keep a job in a pie factory sampling.

truly depressing times showcasing truly despicable people.

good news!

introducing NEW FEDERAL FORM —FF 666—

we, the gutless and spinelass members of congress of the u.s would like to apologize to all the _____________ people of _____________ for our participation in _____________ which happened/ might have happened/ could happen to the __________ people during the years from __________ to ___________.

signed
_____________
bozo & co.

have a trillion made. use (borrowed from our children;s future) stimulus money to pay for them. looks like they will certainly be needing them.

Jun 20, 2009 - 11:50 am 47. Oscar the Grump:

“White guilt”
I saw my son turned down for Berkley and UCLA. He needed at least a 4.3 just to apply. Black students from his school were allowed into those same universities with 3.0s or 3.2s or 3.4s. Of course they don’t call that discrimination. Neither do they call it discrimination when my son can’t get financial assistance. There is plenty of it for the “minorities”. Here is the real rub of it the California population has turned the corner. Whites are less than 50% of the population. In the LA area, there are so few whites in public schools that they stand out ( one in thirty). My children are being treated as second class citizens because they are white and they have good grades.

By the way my parents and my wife’s parents were slaves in the Russian Gulag. Where is my apology? I want my forty acres and a mule.

Jun 20, 2009 - 11:53 am 48. blotto:

I am so sick of this topic. How many times does America have to apologize for slavery? Every Congress offers another apology. And the spineless GOP Senators blithly go along with it-not wanting to appear “racists” for not apologizing. But then that makes all White Americans guilty. And stop calling black Americans African-Americans; that only serves to further the cause of divisivness and that being an American is conditional.

Black race hustlers like the CBC, Sharpton, and Jackson and the Dem party will never let America heal because that is where they derive the majority of their power over people both black and white.

C: How can you be proud of your accomplshments if you got into college because of affirmative action? That is back asswards. If you got into college on merit then you have something to brag about regarding that 3.89gpa(?). But you owe your apparent success to some guilt ridden white liberal; talk about being a slave. You are a slave and you don’t realize it. And black Americans are modern day slaves to the Dem party. And they don’t even know it. Guilt ridden white liberals consider race as the “unique” qualifier that advantages blacks over white Americans with no regard to merit.

To conflate favoritism with denial of position due to race is mixing apples and oranges. Favoritism, social pecking order, nepotism, and out-right criminal patronage hurts white Americans more than blacks. Remember blacks can always cry “racism” in the situation you described while a white American can not.

As for scholarships, how can any black race hustler, with a straight face, say that blacks face difficulties getting inot college when there are scholarships only for blacks?

Jun 20, 2009 - 11:56 am 49. LeighB:

Good point, Maewynia. I’m Scottish and I want my check too.

Jun 20, 2009 - 12:03 pm 50. Moogie:

Delia nailed it: this is a way to perpetuate the victim class of color.

CJ also nailed it: it’s about making themselves feel good about themselves.

Okay, practically everyone on here nailed it (except sheesh, of course). Liberalism is all about feelings. I sure hope those senators had a group hug after reading aloud that lovely piece of refuse. I gagged in my mouth when I read it.

When, oh when, will these infantile snarky little do-gooders ever grow up??

Jun 20, 2009 - 12:20 pm 51. sheesh:

Hey, I got an idea. Let’s put together a photo montage of all the presidents, and when we get to Obama, we won’t put his picture in, we’ll just put in a pair of big googly eyes peering out of blackness. Can you see it? I think that would be a great way to advance civil discourse, don’t you?

Jun 20, 2009 - 12:58 pm 52. Mike:

7 out of 10 black babies in America are born out of wedlock
—————————
South Africa’s Rape Crisis: 1 in 4 Men Say They’ve Done It

By Megan Lindow / Cape Town Saturday, Jun. 20, 2009

South Africans received a horrifying measure of just how bad their country’s rape crisis is with the release this week of a study in which more than a quarter of men admitted to having raped, and 46% of those said that they had raped more than once.

Of those admitting rape, 73% said that they had committed their first assault before the age of 20.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1906000,00.html

———————
Arab slave trade

The Arab slave trade was the practice of slavery in the Arab World, namely West Asia, North Africa, East Africa and certain parts of Europe (such as Sicily and Iberia) during their period of domination by Arab leaders. The trade was focused on the slave markets of the Middle East and North Africa.

Some historians estimate that between 11 and 18 million black African slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert between 650 and 1900,[5][6][7] or more than the 9.4 to 14 million Africans brought to the Americas in the Atlantic slave trade.[8]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

===================

So why is Obama not condemning the Muslims slave traders?

Jun 20, 2009 - 1:03 pm 53. Hot Lunch:

“I’ll be accused of just not getting it, and I am afraid that’s true.”

Its true. Your fears are well founded, but I doubt its the only thing you don’t get.

Jun 20, 2009 - 1:15 pm 54. Delia:

47. Oscar the Grump:

“I want my forty acres and a mule.”

Me too, Oscar. I’m part Irish! Where’s my tater farm and free beer? Arrrrrrrrrrrgh! -And, frankly my dear, I’m tired of being so broke that I’m forced to sew my frilly frocks out of material from my draperies. Hmph! Oh fiddle-dee-dee. *pouts and pushes out lower lip*

Jun 20, 2009 - 1:17 pm 55. Blackwell:

47: Oscar: you have it all wrong: the UC does not consider minorities in the admissions process; if applicants happen to write on an admission essay that they are a minority, that’s beyond the UC’s ability to control. Yes, UC representatives remind minority students to mention their status as a minority in the essay, when visiting campuses senior year, but that is not, repeat not, an evasion of the law. They’re just assisting people to tell their life story. And those special orientation programs and financial assistance for minorities that do not exist for anyone else no matter how poor their families are? Those do not mean the UC discriminates or offers preferential treatment to anyone. Now repeat this five times. Now go and feel guilty.

Jun 20, 2009 - 1:28 pm 56. Self-hating Boomer:

The Republicans should vote as a bloc against this, not because it’s wrong, but because it should be the Demos exclusively apologizing for slavery. If it’s completely a party-line vote, all is as it should be.

Jun 20, 2009 - 2:13 pm 57. Delia:

55. Blackwell:

“Now repeat this five times. Now go and feel guilty.”

I’m white as a ghost. Guiltyyyyyyyyyy.

I’ve never been a slave owner and nor have my fore-mothers/fathers but that doesn’t matter and my next door neighbor who is black has never been a slave but I am white so I should still feel guiltyyyyyyyy.

Talk about ‘racial discrimination’ at its finest.

I grew up with with a best friend who was a black boy [one of the few black people in my school] but, I’m a raaaaaaaaaacist because I have white skin and I use the word ‘negro or negroid’ on occasion. I also use the word caucasoid too btw.

Did it EVER occur to anyone that white people are really ‘colored’ people? We turn more damned colors than any black person.

In the dark all colors are invisible/gone/BW.
In the daylight, all colors are visible and vibrant.

Seeing ‘color’ is irrevelent:
http://www.artsparx.com/seeingcolor.html

Science shows us that the ‘color’ we see is actually the color we are ‘not’ seeing. Weird? Yes.

If you see ‘blue’ you’re NOT seeing blue but rather every color BUT blue:
http://www.hhmi.org/senses/b110.html

White is actually all the shades of the rainbow.
Black is none of them.

You’re welcome.

Jun 20, 2009 - 3:19 pm 58. zopilote:

It would be typical of Congress to decide to fund reparations now
that the deficit is in the trillions…what’s a few more billion
dollars when there are wrongs to be made right?

Someone should remind our black population that it was the party it
keeps voting for that kept them down for so long in the South. The
party that blacks keep voting for now feels that reparations are in
order. I wonder why that party didn’t think of that when Orval Faubus
kept the black kids out of Little Rock High school.

Jun 20, 2009 - 3:40 pm 59. JED:

The debt of slavery, as was founded by a compromise in the Declaration of Independence, was already paid for in blood. The reparations more rightly should have gone to the 600,000 Americans who settled that dispute in 1864 against that abominal practice.
Methinks that that den of jackals congress took another compromise from the executive branch so that no more new wild spend-and-tax plans would be proposed this year. This business opens the legal door to reparations as might be wished by Black Liberation Theology.

The bill has been paid and the receipt is at the Lincoln Memorial.

Jun 20, 2009 - 3:56 pm 60. c:

Blotto,

I have an IQ of 120. I graduated from high school with a 3.5 GPA. The average student who went to my college got about a 3.5. I decided to go to community college first where I got a 3.91 gpa and graduated with highest honors. While doing that I ran varsity track, wrote for the school newspaper, sang in my church choir and completed 150 community service hours while working 30 hours a week. I went to the same college that accepted me out of high school, earned a master’s degree and went on to become a teacher. On my teacher licensing exam, I scored in the 97th percentile and went on to become a successful teacher of English. When state mandadted exams came along, my students passed at well above the AYP mandate and for four years in a row, my students passed at 92% compared the the white teachers who were 15 to 20 percentage points behind me and for three of those years I taught more special Ed students and fewer “GT” students.

I could tell you about the doors that have been closed to me, all of the promotions I did not get, all of the times I was pulled over for driving while black, but in the end that has not held me back. I don’t pretend to understand what it is like to be white in America, but I know that there are priviledges you enjoy by virtue of your white skin. for example, did you know that a black man with no criminal record and a high school diploma stands about the same chance of getting a job as a white man who is a convicted felon? (check out the CNN special “Black in America”) Should you be less proud of what you have accomplished? No. We all take advantage of the opportunities we are given.

You ask how can I be proud of what I have done? Let me tell you. I am dislexic and hyper active and I did not have the priviledge of an IEP to help me suceed. My great grandfather, the son of a slave, could not even sign his own name, my grandparents each have a 6th grade educations because they had to leave school to work, and my parents did not go to college because they could not afford to go to college. My maternal grandfather was beaten with in a inch of his life by KKK members and forced to drink a poisonous subastance ate him from the inside out for the next year. Now here I am, a college graduate with a career. My life is the American Dream. My family has come a long way. That is how I can be proud.

Being Black in America is a double edged sword. There are very few Blacks in my positions over the age of thirty who to some degree has not benefitted from affirmative action. But in my experience, when the rubber meets the road, I have had to step up and show that I belong. I have pulled myself up by my boot straps and I agree with the Republican position on many issues, but this Republican party has too many people who are too willing to assume that I am an idiot who got where he is only because some white guilt ridden flaming liberal gave me a handout.

One last note, thank you for doubting me because it fires me up. I love shattering sterotypes made about me. The fighter in me say no one will define me. I define myself. That is not being a slave, that is being a man, that is being an AMERICAN.

Jun 20, 2009 - 4:03 pm 61. Delia:

60. c:

“I have an IQ of 120″

I have an IQ of 157. BFD. I’m an emotional basket case at times but overall I think I’m a fairly [luckily] sane savant. My over-thinking brain drives me nanners. I’ve got ten thousand thoughts going on in my head for every ten of yours. I’d like my brain to slow the fekk down. I have restless ‘mind’ syndrome.

I grew up white, intelligent, fatherless and poor and nobody wanted to rescue my ‘genius’ mind to help ’save’ the world.

So, what’s your point? Wouldn’t you like to rid the world of ‘color’ based ‘choices’ and truly base whatever job affinity you are akin to with absolute and true judgement based on your actual skills and intellect?

Jun 20, 2009 - 4:25 pm 62. Moogie:

#46 daveinga: I thought the new Federal Form was – WTF – 666 -

Delia: So basically, all white people are, according to the science of spectronomics, multi-colored? Cool! I’m a walking, talking prism! Uh… does this mean Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” artwork was racist?

Jun 20, 2009 - 5:09 pm 63. c:

I was answering Blotto. His question was why am I proud. I gave him a laundry list of why I am proud even though I have benefitted from affirmative action.

Jun 20, 2009 - 5:18 pm 64. c:

Delia,

I wrote my repsonse to try and get some folks here to stop assuming that Blacks who have benefited from affirmative action are not qualified. I also wanted to explain how I can be proud of what I have done. I don’t know if you read the three posts that came before yours, but if my point was not clear, I hope it is now. Would I like to be judged for my merit, yes. Is this always my reality, no. Liberals and conservatives alike have failed to judge me for my merit. I had hoped that running down my credentials, I would earn a measure of respect.

Jun 20, 2009 - 5:35 pm 65. LeighB:

c:, congratulations on all you have achieved. Thank you for caring enough about your students to help them do well. And thanks for sharing your story.

My grandfather had a 3rd grade education, he had to quit school and help his parents run their small store, so his siblings could stay in school. They all graduated from high school and most went to college. He became a life long reader and was a shrewd businessman, but always was a bit embarrassed that he did not even finish grade school. He started his own business and did very well. To be frank, I always thought he was a little mean but I am sure he had to be that strong willed just to keep going and keep working toward his dream.

I never thought I’d grow to hate identity politics so. It does not seem to be forward-looking and I prefer to think about where we can all go together, if we cooperate and each do our best.

Jun 20, 2009 - 5:40 pm 66. c:

Thanks for your kind words. Your story is inspiring and I will use it to inspire my students to do better and appreciate what they have.

Peace

Jun 20, 2009 - 7:15 pm 67. Delia:

64. c:

“Delia,

I wrote my repsonse to try and get some folks here to stop assuming that Blacks who have benefited from affirmative action are not qualified.”

Ahhhhh. But, there’s the ‘rub’. Perhaps in your ‘time’ the ideology of ‘AA’ meant ‘overcoming’ to a certain extent.

What say you about Black mags, Black Networks and Black Churches?

Please understand, racism is racism regardless of ‘color or shade’. ‘Race’ is a misnomer we too easily use btw. We are the ‘human’ race. We are not ‘races’…we are ‘ethnicities’.

Gaw. Sometimes I want to just slap a bitch.

Jun 20, 2009 - 7:30 pm 68. j armstrong:

If it had not been for slavery most African-Americans would be Africans.

Jun 20, 2009 - 8:29 pm 69. Eric:

I never have and never will succumb to Liberal white guilt. I’m a conservative white male and darn proud of my country’s history, Western culture, and our don’t care one bit about past wrongs committed by this nation.

Will Brazil, which ended its slavery in the 1880’s, apologize to black Brazilians? Or is it only American whites that flog themselves over ancient history?

Will Arab nations, some of which only ended slavery in the last 40 years, ever apologize to their former, living, slaves? Doubtful.

No, this seems a disease that only afflicts the American Left.

Jun 20, 2009 - 8:59 pm 70. jrp61356:

#7 – TomF wrote “I know that in Southern schools kids are taught that it was about succession [sic - should be secession], but there is enough evidence that slavery was a prime issue. At least Lincoln thought so.”

As far as Lincoln went, slavery only became an issue after almost two years of war, when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Up until then, Lincoln had made it clear that preservation of the Union took overwhelming priority over the abolition of slavery. It is true that Lincoln did not wish to see slavery expanded beyond the Southern states where it already existed, but he also stated that if he could keep the Union together without having to free one slave, he would do so without hesitation.

It should also be noted that Lincoln’s primary motivation for issuing the Proclamation was to attempt to drum up support for the war in the North. Overall, the war had not been going especially well for the North up to that point, and he came to realize that preservation of the Union was not a popular notion among Northerners who were growing increasingly tired of seeing more and more of their young men coming home wounded, dead, or simply not coming home at all. Lincoln therefore decided to “change horses in the middle of the stream” by shifting the focus of the war from preservation to abolition.

As a side note, it is also fascinating that the Proclamation was selective in where it applied – it did not apply to all slaves, only slaves in specifically named parts of the country. This conveniently included the four border states that did not secede but still had significant slave populations, as well as certain other areas.

Was slavery an issue? Certainly – but it wasn’t the main issue, not even with Lincoln.

Jun 20, 2009 - 9:18 pm 71. jrp61356:

I need to make a clarification of my previous post, where I discuss the selectivity of the Proclamation. It did not apply to the four border states, so that the slaves in those states were not freed.

Jun 20, 2009 - 9:22 pm 72. jrp61356:

As regards this pointless and ridiculous apology, I too see this as laying the groundwork for reparations. However, reparations using taxpayer money is also ridiculous. That would mean that these gutless windbags in DC would be taking tax money from blacks to give back to blacks! How ignorant is that? But then, it is typical of how things work in DC.

Also, since President Zero does little else other than making overseas trips to apologize for the perceived past sins of our country, why should we be surprised at the Senate offering yet another apology for past sins?

Jun 20, 2009 - 9:31 pm 73. Oscar the Grump:

Blackwell
I don’t feel guilty, I don’t feel guilty, I don’t feel guilty, I donnnn feeeel guilteeeeeee, I don f……………. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Jun 20, 2009 - 9:42 pm 74. Oscar the Grump:

Since everyone is bragging about their IQ, I want to brag about my strong 82 IQ. And, I’m really proud of it!

Jun 20, 2009 - 9:44 pm 75. m dog:

affirmative action is a disgrace. It gives unqualified people positions they do not deserve and deserving people doubt of their position because of affirmative action.

My father has gotten places because of affirmative action and he told me he was not the best qualified often but his race and color would get him in.I would personally be embarrassed to tell my son that. All these racially divisive actions only cause more problems and separations, at some point its time to move on from the past.

Jun 20, 2009 - 10:24 pm 76. Nick:

Interesting that the President reminds everyone, particularly foreign, US hating despots that he wants to be buddies with, that any wrongs that were committed prior to his ascension, can not possibly be his fault, “it was before his time”….contrast that with a sheep’s pen of a senate, that can not wait to abase itself on the altar of political correctness. This senate can now only represent those who want something for nothing. Turn everyone of these senator’s to pasture, they are weak willed cowards, bending in the summer breeze. They represent no one but themselves, they do not care about the greatness of the USA, and now will look forward to all the blubber and bluster of explaining their courageous position for being apologists on sunday morning talk shows.

Jun 20, 2009 - 11:20 pm 77. lee:

C

The problem with affirmative action is that you risk excluding equally (if not more) qualified whites and (in some instances) Asian students just to achieve a racially diverse student population. That’s unfair.

Most Asian students don’t need affirmative action. We typically score high enough to be admitted to most places. Some states have an Asian population around 4%, yet their most prestigious university
will feature around 20-40% Asian students. We’re supposed to make up about 20% of all medical field, although our overall population in this country is 4,5% (at the top of my head). Hindus, muslims, and Jews also well represented, at least proportional to their overall population.

As a black person, you should realize that at heart, affirmative action is more about increasing representations of Latinos and blacks, and less about a general “minority” empowerment. Those two groups typically score lower in tests and struggle in school. I’m not suggesting that they’re inherently disadvantaged. But Asians often come from cultures that are obsessed about academics (you have to take entrance exams for HIGH SCHOOL in some countries), and they carry over their intense focus on studying to the states.

Not all minorities have same interests and performance levels, at college level or otherwise. You don’t see too many Asians in basketball programs or anything related to English lit and writing. In my MFA writing program, I was one of two Asians in a class size around of maybe 60. That’s not because the English dept. is biased towards Asians. We tend to prefer the field of science, medicine, and law.

Affirmative action can’t diversify all aspects of college. The admissions people won’t arbitrarily admit underqualifed Latinos to pharmacy programs just for the sake of diversity – that major is HARD. AA might bring in an additional 10-15% more minorities who were probably qualified to begin with. Meanwhile, it won’t save vast amount of poor, struggling minorities who might have a chance at a junior college that’s really a glorified high school for adults.

Jun 21, 2009 - 12:47 am 78. Trochilus:

There is a very real reason for Democrats to apologize for slavery and even for their racially divisive policies today, but certainly not on my behalf.

I’ve never participated in slavery. And, as a matter of fact, my ancestors had no part in slavery. None I condemn slavery, but I reject the idea that anyone apologizes on my behalf for an institution that neither I nor my ancestors had anything to do with.

However, the Democrats should indeed apologize on behalf of their political party . . . past and present!

Defenders of slavery in the ante-bellum deep south? Democrats.

Fire-breathers instigating secession upon the election of Republican President Abraham Lincoln? Democrats.

Defenders of the Confederacy? Democrats.

Ugly KKK perpetrators following the war, and during its revival in the 20th century? – Democrats.

Power elites throughout the deep south during Jim Crow? Democrats.

And even today they continue to divide people by forcibly promoting resentment and racial discord.

Perpetrators of divisive policies that continue to promote racial disharmony by forcing hiring decisions made along racial lines, rather than based on merit? Democrats.

Of course, unwilling to own up to the fact that they were, and continue to be the primary perpetrators of racial discord in this country, they want to pretend that they are apologizing on behalf of the entire nation.

What hogwash!

Apologize on your own behalf, Democrats. And do not try to taint me with your disgusting past, nor your twisted and dishonest present!

Jun 21, 2009 - 4:28 am 79. Anna Anorld:

This so called apology is the check card for free handouts to selected Blacks in days and months to come. It is the manner to politically get something for nothing. It not only offensive to all Whites but to all
good Black people as well.

When will Black men make apologies for not being fathers to their fathers? There are more fatherless Black families…. many more than White masters to slaves.

Happy No-Father’s Day!

Jun 21, 2009 - 5:32 am 80. blotto:

C: I don’t know if you are still reading.

But big deal! All your protestations can not and will not defend your being an affirmative action recipient. How can you be proud of (all) you have done if it weren’t for a white liberal giving you the privelege of going to college. White students must work against that same white liberal. So who is really working against the grain?

Wow you sound like super teacher! Comparing yourself to white teachers is also a good sign that you have some inner deamons you need to exorcise.

“I could tell you about the doors that have been closed to me, all of the promotions I did not get, all of the times I was pulled over for driving while black, but in the end that has not held me back.” Your story takes a turn here. I too am a teacher and as teachers we only get yearly promotions based on length of service. So I don’t know about your not receiving your “promotions.” And again to conflate being pulled over while being black is due to the vast amount of black crime not being black. Would you rather that police not try to intercept black criminals and they go and ravage black kids and communities? Apples/oranges.

“But in my experience, when the rubber meets the road, I have had to step up and show that I belong. I have pulled myself up by my boot straps and I agree with the Republican position on many issues, but this Republican party has too many people who are too willing to assume that I am an idiot who got where he is only because some white guilt ridden flaming liberal gave me a handout.” But that is exactly it. You did and the black community does owe its existence on guilt ridden white liberals. Had you said that I made it to where you are in spite of affirmative action, I would have respect for you, and your travails. As it stands, I have much more respect for your grandfathers and parents for having overcome and done what they did as opposed to you.

Jun 21, 2009 - 5:41 am 81. c:

Delia,
you wrote: “What say you about Black mags, Black Networks and Black Churches?”

I have gone to churches that are 99% white. I watch tv shows that have all white casts. I went to a college with a 4% black population. I have read magazines that contain 99% white images. Why black churches, some people grew up in them because they live in black communities. Are you going to drive into those communities to diversify them? Should they drive to yours? Look around you? Can you let me that mostly white institutions and services do not exist? The difference is they are not labeled as white. Just because these things exist does not mean it is a bad thing. I can’t walk in to any babar shop and get a hair cut because barbers do not have to learn how to cut black hair. I’m not complaining, because I know that there re places that cater to my specific need. There are magazines and movies that focus on Latinos, specific religions, Asians, men, women, conservatives, liberals.

Lee,
Your points are valid and I am not necessarily defending AA as it exists. I am saying that not all people who benefit from AA are idiots as many people on this page believe. Perhaps the existence of the system perpetuates this problem, but each individual needs to take a step back and think. When all things are equal, it may be a good thing to take the student who diversifies a student body (even a white one), only when all thing are equal.

To the person who says that her dad has gotten jobs he was less qualified for, are you suggesting that every white person has gotten a job because he or she was the most qualified? People are promoted for all kinds of reasons. When there is a fair objective measure and minorities who score low on that measure are promoted anyway, I have a serious problem with that. But so often, promotions are about who likes you or trusts you that “qualified” is a subjective term. I have missed out at minimum six promotions because the “boss” liked the white candidate better even though my job performance and experience dwarfed theirs. I did not cry racism, I just sucked it up and took the next opportunity that presented itself. I also kissed up to the boss a bit more so I could gain more favor

Jun 21, 2009 - 6:32 am 82. c:

Blotto.
Perhaps you missed the point that my GPA fell right in the qualified range, and upon graduating from community college I was a more than qualified. You only read what you wanted to read, that I had benefitted from AA and therefore I should not be proud of what I have done.

I admit it. I did compare myself to white teachers to demonstrate that for every story you produce about a black person or other person of color gaining advantage as a result of color, I can produce one in which we are held back. If I make, it is because some white guy let me.
If you make it, it is because you are the most qualified. You don’t see me as an equal and that is the problem. Even when I produce evidence of my capability, you still minimize what I have done. All you see is that Black people owe their existence of our communities to white liberal guilt.

I don’t know where you teach but not all districts work exacly the same way. We get yearly pay increases and placement preference based on tenure, but to become a team leader, a program coordinator, or department head has nothing to do with years of service in the places I have taught. In many cases, principals have put the person in position because that is who he wanted.

In regards to you comments about my being pulled over for driving while Black. Nothing about my appearance says I’m a criminal other than the fact that I am a black man. If I am following all the traffic laws, the my car I am driving is not stolen nor are there warrants connected with my tags, what point is there to pull me over. Or are you also assuming that I am a latent criminal who deserves to be harrased? I have been one friend who has been pulled over while wearing shirt and tie on his way to church because he was driving in his own predominately white community every Sunday for a month. The cop was new to the area so he did not know that particular black person.

At least you are willing to show respect for my ancestors if not me. I think I get part of your arguement. Perhaps I can put it another way. All of my success is due to my work because just as quickly as someone gave me priviledge because of my race, they were just as willing to yank that carpet from under my feet when I fail to produce. Keep in mind the AA is not alway institutional. I can choose to leave the race bubble blank on an application, but when I walk in to the interview or on the job, my Blackness is plain to see. I have “benefited” from AA by virtue of showing up while Black. There in lies the rub. I can’t blend in to society because I can’t pass for anything else but Black. So, by your definition, I should be ashamed period because I never truely know if I have been given favor by some well meaning but misguided soul. All I can do is do the best job I can and my performance and results is how a measure that success.

I don’t care whether you respect me because I doubt there is anything I can do to earn it. I do hope though that you are willing to give Blacks the benefit of the doubt and not assume that they are incapable just because they are Black and my have received some benefit from AA. I hope that you are willing to treat your Black students fairly (note that I did not say equally) and give them the tools they need to succeed. I know that you will not give them a pass and that is good because White liberal guilt cripples Black students and has done so to me. It was a Republican White professor who kicked me in the butt, judged me for my merit, and challenged me to be the all that I am today who stands out as one of four influential figures in my life. You have the power to do the same for your Black students as well as all of your students. If you do that you will have my respect even if I don’t have yours.

Jun 21, 2009 - 7:30 am 83. William:

I think all the African Americans in the country should accept the apology and ask for a free ticket back to Africa.

Jun 21, 2009 - 8:32 am 84. Delia:

Roger’s Mods, please let my last comment go throughhhhhhh. Pretty pwease wiff sugar on top?

Jun 21, 2009 - 9:08 am 85. sheesh:

83 William . . . Any questions?

Jun 21, 2009 - 9:48 am 86. c:

I’m just curious, how many of you agree with William? My people have been int heis country since its conception. This is home and I am not going anywhere.

I hope William is just one bigot who speaks for a minority of Pajama media readers.

Jun 21, 2009 - 11:56 am 87. sheesh:

86 . . . Easy, easy . . . no shoving. There’s plenty of time to condemn such racist bile. Single file, take your turn. That’s it, nice and orderly.

Jun 21, 2009 - 12:11 pm 88. Self-hating Boomer:

I smell sock puppets.

Jun 21, 2009 - 12:48 pm 89. Delia:

88. Self-hating Boomer,

I smell ‘team spirit’ and frankly, they need to douche.

Jun 21, 2009 - 1:22 pm 90. Self-hating Boomer:

Delia, I don’t think there are as many people in this room as you think there are. And I also don’t think their self-descriptions are accurate, either.

Jun 21, 2009 - 1:38 pm 91. whataloadacrap08:

Forty acres and a mule?

Jun 21, 2009 - 1:38 pm 92. Delia:

Self-hating Boomer, Multiple personalied minds are a terrible thing to waste. Yes, I made a new word.

Jun 21, 2009 - 2:51 pm 93. sheesh:

86 . . . Tickets please. Sorry, no cutting in line. We have too many people waiting to weigh in. Righteous indignation deserves to be heard. Righteously righteous, not the other kind. That’s it . . . move along. Say your piece and call it good. It will be taken at face value. Stand your ground as men and women of justice. That’s right. Defend the call of Christ for brothers felled and sisters wronged. Keep close the imperative of accountability. No rush, everyone will have their chance. One by one my faith in those with whom I disagree is being restored. Would that I were so enamored of my opposites and their selfless investment in good long ago, I would be far more the accepting provocateur. Forgive me, I know not what I do.

Next.

Jun 21, 2009 - 3:03 pm 94. Dave Surls:

“I’m just curious, how many of you agree with William?”

Sounded kind of rude to me. I don’t much care for it when people tell me what I ought to do, or where I ought to go.

Jun 21, 2009 - 4:46 pm 95. Delia:

sheeshers,

What color am I?
What color are you?

Which question matters?
Which answer questions?

Jun 21, 2009 - 5:33 pm 96. Mari:

c:
I think the point people are trying to make is not that no blacks are qualified or able, but that if people were just judging on ability/character/etc, they shouldn’t need affirmative action to succeed. Blacks are no different from people of European or Mexican or Asian descent, they aren’t stupid and don’t need special help to succeed. It just makes people question all of them (including those like yourself, who are qualified). Didn’t somebody point out that if inner city kids in general have lower test scores, the way to solve the problem is to look at their schools (and get their parents to give ‘em a kick in the behind for motivation). Also, for the love of pete, somebody get cracking on a effective way to reduce gang culture and violence, it would go a long way to restoring respectability!

Jun 21, 2009 - 6:28 pm 97. Ms. Attitude:

I’m confused, maybe it’s my blonde hair!! But if the Senate apologized to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States…doesn’t that mean that Americans are apologizng to themselves? Aren’t African-Americans the people of the United States? Or are they not part of the United States?

My geneology is confusing too! My Great-Aunt did our geneaology on my father’s mother’s side. Going back to the family arriving until the abolition of slavery there was one slave owned. The thing we all realized was that there was no wife listed but there were 13 kids….figure it out! LOL

Then my mom did the geneology of her mother’s family and it turns out that her Great Grandmother was Jewish.

My family didn’t live under Jim Crow and I’ve never gotten anything with Affirmative Action.

What am I? Jewish-American? African-American? And the other’s that are mingled in there…Cherokee-American? German-American? Irish-American? English-American?

Why don’t we just call ourselves American!!!

Together we stand, divided we fall.

Jun 21, 2009 - 7:07 pm 98. Ms. Attitude:

83. William aka Sheesh(the instigator):

I think all the African Americans in the country should accept the apology and ask for a free ticket back to Africa.

Would I get a check and be put on a perpetual tour of the world?

Jun 21, 2009 - 7:09 pm 99. Aaron Byrnes:

When will the Democrat party apologize for slavery? The previous poster has it right. After slavery, the Democrat party practiced Jim Crow and segregation and gave us Bull Connor up until a few decades ago.

The author asks why should the innocent apologize to people who are never victims? But there are living members of the Democrat party who practiced segregation against victims who are still alive. The Democrat party should make a special apology for its role in Jim Crow and segregation after the years that slavery ended.

Jun 21, 2009 - 7:25 pm 100. ITF:

C,

First, a truth: Only YOU own your success. You earned it, you’re entitled to enjoy it, and no one is justified in denying it to you. You are what you do. A person’s race, in and of itself, tells one exactly NOTHING about who or what that person is.

There should be no preferences. For anyone. Preferences only sow doubt about real accomplishments, and punish others on the basis of membership in the wrong group. Think of all you had to learn to accompish what you have. Think of all the work and dedication. Now think of all the black kids being told from kindergarten on that they CANNOT do what you did – succeed on their own intelligence and dedication – but must rely on the Enlightened Progressives to assign them their place in society. That they haven’t the inherent ability to succeed on their own, as INDIVIDUALS – BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE.

No one who pays attention or thinks it through will doubt you personally. If they know you and still doubt you because of your race, then they are just plain stupid. You really shouldn’t waste your energy caring what they think.

In point of fact, if they think someone like you succeeded only on the basis of AA, they are most likely a Progressive who thinks they deserve the credit for your success. And by extension they’re entitled to run your life for you. Now THAT is ignorance on a stupendous scale.

***

The last paragraph would be you, Sheesh. So piss off.

Jun 21, 2009 - 7:57 pm 101. jw:

The good Senators of the United States of America should get daily exercise by walking down the Mall to the Lincoln Memorial. President Lincoln was a Republican, member of the anti-slavery party, which fought the Civil War which was against slavery – as the secessionist southern states knew, when they refused to recognize Lincoln as President and went to war against the United States by firing on Fort Sumpter. (The Republican Party originally formed to prevent slavery in the new states and territories.) The Republican Party got passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, the 14th Amendment ensuring equal treatment under the law, and the 15th Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote to every citizen. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863 – 146 years ago, and the 3 Amendments in 1865 – 144 years ago. The United States, under Abraham Lincoln, fought a war to abolish slavery. So why should the United States 144 years later apologize for it; and why should the United States apologize for Jim Crow laws that were only in the southern states? These laws were overturned by the 1960s by the courts of the United States and new ones passed by the United States, namely, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. So why is the United States Senate in 2009, 43 and 44 years later, apologizing?

Jun 21, 2009 - 8:24 pm 102. ITF:

C:

In answer to your question. Apparently William thinks he’s funny. I seriously doubt even William agrees with William. In fact, it’s probably Sheesh trying out his latest dumb-ass troll play.

Jun 21, 2009 - 8:55 pm 103. Lawler:

I apologize to no one for the institution of slavery. While slavery was legal here in the US my ancestors were fleeing famine and persecution in Ireland. When Jim Crow was the law of the land my Italian ancestors escaped poverty in Calabria to make a new life in America. Both family sides worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania and suffered social and economic discrimination. Both sides survived and prospered. No apoligies then; none now.

Jun 22, 2009 - 5:27 am 104. sheesh:

98. Ms. Attitude . . . ” William aka Sheesh(the instigator)”

102. ITF:. . . “I seriously doubt even William agrees with William. In fact, it’s probably Sheesh trying out his latest dumb-ass troll play.”

No, I had nothing to do with idiot William in #83. I find it predictable and pathetic that you would attempt this dodge just to avoid addressing the blatant racism from within your ranks. It’s part of the right’s pathological aversion to accountability.

24 hours and 20 comments after William’s ridiculous statement and the only response is “it sounded kind of rude” to Dave Surls. Wow! The passion! The outrage! The selfless commitment to justice! What happened to “Why Should Obama Speak Out on Iran? Let Me Count the Ways.”

Never mind. I already know. What you need to know is this . . . minorities largely reject Republicans and conservatism for a reason. This is the reason. Fear not! Embrace your ever dwindling relevance! Dip your tea bags in the evaporating swill of conservative values! It’s a wonderful world. One day you’ll be a part of it. Until then, semper lie.

Jun 22, 2009 - 6:28 am 105. Frank:

They’re just following their CIC’s example like good little toadies.

Jun 22, 2009 - 7:43 am 106. Don2:

The United States already ‘appologized’ for slavery at places like Gettysburg, The Wilderness, Cold Harbor, Chickagmauga, Petersburg etc etc.

Jun 22, 2009 - 7:57 am 107. Clayton E. Cramer:

What irritates me about some of the remarks above is that AA and identity politics has created an unnecessary level of anger and bad assumptions. When I went to college, about 1/3 of the black students were there because of AA; the other 2/3 were admitted under the standard admissions criteria. The knowledge that black students were being admitted outside standard admissions criteria created a situation where the other 2/3 were viewed with some suspicion for that reason.

Affirmative action is a method by which liberals get to feel good about letting in unqualified students based on race, while creating a negative perception that blacks aren’t capable of competing on an equal basis with whites. Because AA admits have much higher dropout rates (because they had inadequate preparation in primary and secondary schools), the net effect is that a lot of black students who might be qualified to enter a second tier university–and graduate–end up dropping out of a first tier university. But at least the guilt-ridden white liberals can feel good about themselves.

We need to fix the broken primary and secondary education system, and some destructive elements of ghetto culture, if we really want to solve the problem that makes affirmative action look like a good idea. But that would require confronting teachers’ unions, the cynical promotion of rap culture by those with a financial interest in it, and a lot more of what Bill Cosby has been doing: emphasizing that increasingly, what holds blacks back isn’t white racism, but some bad patterns within ghetto culture.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:13 am 108. WhyamInotsurprised?:

Hey #51 Sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh –

Hey, I got an idea. Let’s put together a photo description of Sheesh in the dictionary, so when people want to know what horse manure is, they can see a pile of steaming dung with flies everywhere! Can you see it? I think that would be a great way to advance civil discourse, don’t you?

His idiocy is boundless.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:14 am 109. blotto:

C: “All you see is that Black people owe their existence of our communities to white liberal guilt.” No that is not what I see especially when I teach. But what you don’t see is the paternalism of white liberals and their false claims about being for the black man. It is you who given up his integrity and sense of responsibility because you and black America has jumped on board the white liberal slave wagon.

“In many cases, principals have put the person in position because that is who he wanted.” Don’t have an answer for you on promotions since we all know most districts are controlled by white liberals so again it is the liberal who has impeded you. I, on the other hand, have been denied a coaching position on the basis of race. And it burns me and hurt my players. As I state before, patronage hurts both good white and black teachers…

But take for instance the Ricci case. How can you justify not promoting all the deserving white firemen and Hispanic because the blacks bombed the test? That is what hurts you in my eyes. The blantant racial discrimination used by white liberals to buy your vote.

“There in lies the rub. I can’t blend in to society because I can’t pass for anything else but Black. So, by your definition, I should be ashamed period because I never truely know if I have been given favor by some well meaning but misguided soul. All I can do is do the best job I can and my performance and results is how a measure that success.” When black America wakes up and realizes white liberals have been using them then the races will be united. It is the white liberals who have made you a second class citizen. In your own words you see that I am right. Good for you to do the best you can. That I can respect.

C, we are total sympatico in your last paragraph. I do treat all my students the same-I treat them like I would my own sons and daughters-if I had some. My junior varsity football players would say that I did as you want. That is why they and I were upset that I was not moved to a varsity position in a predominately black varisty football squad in a predomiantely (90%) black high school. But all my kids know I loved them.

You and I have more in common than you think. And I am not the ogere you think I am. I,too, wich you the very best.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:15 am 110. davimcg:

You know, instead of being out of work and on unemployment today, I’d probably be independently wealthy if not for the “No Irish Need Apply” laws of the 19th century. Wow, after all this time blaming myself for stupid decisions, I realize it is not my fault.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:16 am 111. Clayton E. Cramer:

Will blacks apologize for slavery? Remember that there were black slave owners. They were never a huge fraction, but they were out there. See Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roark, Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1984) for a detailed examination of one such family, who went from one of the wealthier families in South Carolina to poverty in a generation. The patriarch invested heavily in Confederate war bonds; his sons tried to join the Confederate Army (but rejected because they were black); and freeing of the slaves meant that his sons lost most of their assets, and the land they retained was now relatively worthless.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:21 am 112. masstexodus:

Right now, today, slavery and human trafficking continues in many countries. Those pushing for slavery apologies would have a lot more credibility if they were working to rid the world of slavery, rather than position themselves for a reparations payday.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:29 am 113. Francis Beckwith:

Given his paternity and maternity, does this mean that President Obama must apologize to himself?

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:45 am 114. Fragmentarian:

As a human being, on behalf of other thinking humans, I apologize for sheesh and his socks. We are all to blame.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:45 am 115. Robohobo:

The “No Irish Need Apply” signs are still out where I live. But is not ‘whites’ that hang the signs.

In post-”The 0bamanation” America we are not supposed to even have to have this conversation, right? The seas shall stop rising and the planet shall heal – remember that? Now that the ‘New Messiah’ is here, all is right with the world, isn’t it?

No?

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:49 am 116. Kat in Indiana:

Oh dear, must I apologize to myself? My English lineage obviously should apologize to my Irish side, the Prussian German side should apologize to the German/Swiss Mennonite side, and who knows about that southwestern German ancestor who had features and a surname that would suggest a Jewish background. And the whispered rumors of a touch of Shawnee…

And therefore, I should expect apologies from Catholics for the Anabaptist oppression, the Vikings for what they did to the Celts, the Romans for what they did to most of Europe, and the Allies for what happened to Germany during WWII (even though my ancestors had been firmly ensconced in this country by that time). Oh, and everyone at Ellis Island that were unable to spell all of these ancestor’s last names correctly. Never mind that many of these people probably didn’t have enough formal education to know how their names should be spelled. They been dissed.

The only apologies that are truly forthcoming should be from this treasonous president and those dim bulbs that voted for him and the complicent members of Congress -for his destruction of our Constitution and of our country, in a cloud of scorched earth that would do General Sherman proud.

Jun 22, 2009 - 10:16 am 117. Paul -Indiana:

The thing that’s wrong with affermitive action is that people like Michelle Obama use up a spot in a good college. She was a quota student if there ever was one. If you don’t believe me take a look at her senior thesis. Links are in the first paragraph on this web page. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8642.html

Jun 22, 2009 - 10:28 am 118. Paul -Indiana:

#107. Mr. Cramer “We need to fix the broken primary and secondary education system, and some destructive elements of ghetto culture”
==========================================
Some of that can be done now, i.e. ghetto culture. However there is no ‘we’. It’s YOU Blacks.

Jun 22, 2009 - 10:32 am 119. Delia:

Kiss me! I’m all mixed up. Finnish/English/Irish/Dutch/Broccoli/Lettuce/Mayo/Chicken

Call me a salad already.

Jun 22, 2009 - 10:42 am 120. Blackwell:

C at 86: William sure seems like a bigot. But in the crowd that condemns affirmative action and preferences, there are always some “I saw big foot” types who make comments like William, just as in the opposite side, there are some genuine haters. None of those weirdos ought to distract the rest of us from the big picture.

And you are quite right, african americans are literally as American as apple pie: show me another country where minorities did back flips to fight in both world wars; where the minority- with plenty to compain about- wasn’t rife with traitors, bombers, etc.

Sheesh at 104: you’re a bit off on some of those comments: blacks, asians, hispanics embrace socially conservative policies as shown by a recent election in California to name only one.

Blacks historically were bigger supporters of education and voted republican in very large numbers before the 60’s welfare and “I’m a victim I don’t have to study, or if i do it’ll be swahili” and “how about ebonics?” plague. Only in the past 15 or so years have african americans began to realize the damage it did to them, and how pernicious to young african american kids the “you’re acting white” mentality foisted on them by white liberals who despise the US middle-class has been.

I admit the GOP has hardly overextended itself trying to mend the bridges, but the GOP has in fact been there: affirmative action, for example, got its big start under Nixon. The demand for rigor in classrooms and not swahili has come consistently from the right. Slowly and surely, minorities are trending back to common ground with the right. You see it in minority demands for better schools–not union dominated, multiculti schools, but ones with real courses.

Jun 22, 2009 - 11:50 am 121. DeadHeadFred:

Sure, give them reparations, then charge them, with interest and inflation, for the cost of the Civil War. My oh my, it will just happen that the amount of reparations will equal the cost of the Civil War.

Or better yet, offer them free passage to any country where they think they will be more successful and better treated.

Besides, haven’t reparations already been paid, many times over? How many trillions of dollars have been thrown at blacks in the form of monetary and social welfare?

Jun 22, 2009 - 11:51 am 122. Avitar:

My side of the family was all northern during the civil war but mother’s family was the Gores. In the very early eighteenth century while trading with the Indians in the Wisconsin area, the Indians did not have enough beaver pelts to pay for the whole load of guns and whiskey so threw a girl into the trade. The idea that women cannot be traded in place of beaver pelts never occurred to most Indians. My Grandfather Gore’s fifth cousin Al Gore can apologize to himself.

Nearly all remaining descendents of white southern slaveholders are black. So many lines of white slave holders were killed off in the civil war only their black lines survived. The North had generals, Sheridan and Sherman, engaged in looting through the southern countryside and cities and the south was on the loosing side. Of the six hundred odd thousand Americans killed in the civil war they were disproportionally white southern males from slave holding families who were doing the fighting,

Jun 22, 2009 - 11:51 am 123. "progressive"watch:

I think Obama should apologize to the people of the United States. Those who voted for Obama should apology to me. Democrats should apology for using the black people. And Shessssssh should apology to the rest of the posters on this site.

Jun 22, 2009 - 12:00 pm 124. StellaZ:

The innocent have no need to apologize to the unvictimized.

Where prejudice, racism, and social bias is concerned, few in America are innocent. It is sown into the fabric of our society.

Personal Antecdote as an example. I am the parent and grandparent of African-American children/child. I attended a dinner party with my husband where those invited were aware of that.

After a while you get a sixth sense about when the comments will start. As we sat outside, I moved away from the group prior to one gentlemen telling a story of asking a relative who had recently toured the White House how he enjoyed his visit. His relative answered: I didn’t go to see the White House, I went to see the watermelon patch.

This gave the hostess permission to announce how her Father confused her by having so many derogatory names for African-Americans, she didn’t know what to call them. As the group laughed along with her story which was elaborate and lengthy, she ended up saying, “So I asked, well, what do they come to?” As if she was asking about a dog or a horse. By then I had moved to a wooden swing in the yard, my back to the group.

She then used the excuse the author of this post used: All Americans have endured some type of abuse, it is a rite of passage, as an excuse for her lengthy ‘joke’ about all the names her Dad used for African-Americans.

The Founders of the Constitution jointly voted that African-Americans were not citizens thus the rights of the Constitution did not apply to them. The Supreme Court and the United States Congress passed and upheld laws that federally sanctioned lynching of African-Americans and mass oppression of African-Americans after the Civil War ended slavery. This systematic oppression and brutal abuse was not extended to any other quote ‘immigrant’ group in America. Native Americans alone can claim similar abuse at the hands of the Federal Government, and they were apologized to by the Congress already.

Why a resolution, you ask? Because the civil right injustices against African-Americans were federally and legally supported for over 150 years and were rubber stamped or found their origin in the Halls of Congress. Thus the acknowledgement and apology once and for all for these violations should be done in those very halls. Is it too little too late? Of course it is.

As I sat there in the twilight as I endured further overt and arrogant, and yes, ignorant abuse, as a guest, I did not fight back. I did not argue. Because as a parent and grandparent of African-American children, I have learned to pick my battles. I chose to treat with grace and courtesy those who had invited me to their home. I hoped for the opportunity to challenge one day the group ignorance of their display of prejudice racism and hatred one-on-one with the brilliance, poise, and love my President, Barack Obama does.

And that day I will say, when the antecdote is repeated for new hearers, when the question is asked? What to they ‘come to’. They ‘come to’ Ja’wan, Elizabeth, and Jonathan. Names given by their parents, not their slave-owners. Who are ‘they’? Nameless frightening shadowy hordes of different shades of black? NO! Precious unique individual miracles of God who have graciously been granted to be part of my life. Who to know is a privilege and an honor.

If you tell such jokes, or laugh at them. Do not distance yourself from such conversations and wait for the opportunity to exhibit intelligence and educate the ignorant, then you are not innocent. As I, an European-American whose ancestors can be traced to the Mayflower, was not innocent and had to acknowledge my own participation in America’s original sin of slavery & Jim Crow, prior to my living intimate encounter with these perfect and precious people who now grace my life.

Jun 22, 2009 - 12:01 pm 125. Anonymous:

“…minorities largely reject Republicans and conservatism for a reason.”

The reason is because the Democrats promise certain minorities free handouts and/or preferential treatment under the law…just as they’ve always done, and then they deliver on their promises.

The Democrats have never changed their basic idea (special privilege for special people). All that has changed is who the special people are.

In the old days, their political system was set up to favor whites over blacks (Jim Crow), now it’s the other way around (Affirmative Action).

Either way, it’s wrong.

And, the idea that Democrat politicians are going to apologize on my behalf for the evil deeds performed by the membership of THEIR party, is totally laughable.

Sorry, but I’m not accepting the blame for what Democrats like Jefferson Davis or George Wallace did. You want to apologize on their behalf, fine by me. You want to apologize on my behalf…screw you.

And, shame on the Republicans in the Senate for going along with this tripe.

Jun 22, 2009 - 12:03 pm 126. kywrite:

The real tragedy of affirmative action is that it harms, rather than helps, those who supposedly benefit from it. I admit it: not knowing who benefitted from affirmative action, I think twice before trusting the word of a black doctor. Or a black lawyer, banker, teacher. If I KNEW they were achieving due to merit, I would look at it very differently; one of the five smartest people I know is a brilliant black woman.

Then there’s the problem of admitting students into very competitive and challenging programs because of their skin color, not their demonstrated abilities. Who lasts? The kids who are well-prepared, not the affirmative action kids. Going to a less challenging school more used to helping educate less-prepared kids would slash the college dropout rate of those “helped” by affirmative action. Instead of dropping qualifications, perhaps those elite schools should look at ways to groom minorities while they’re still in junior high so that they’ll be prepared for the challenging programs and can compete at the same level as those from other more academically-oriented cultures.

Jun 22, 2009 - 12:49 pm 127. Clayton E. Cramer:

Mr. Cramer “We need to fix the broken primary and secondary education system, and some destructive elements of ghetto culture”
==========================================
Some of that can be done now, i.e. ghetto culture. However there is no ‘we’. It’s YOU Blacks.

Actually, there’s a lot that whites can do to help.

1. MTV could simply stop showing misogynistic rap videos (and that includes white rappers as well). Yes, some of this misogynistic garbage is “authentic,” but much of it is a feedback loop, and attempts to sell a pseudo-ghetto culture to Malibu’s Most Wanted rich white kids. It won’t go away over night, but MTV can stop its part of the feedback loop.

2. Stop letting the claims of “authenticity” be used to silence critics, white and black, of a subculture that degrades women, encourages illegitimacy, and glorifies violence and drug dealing. There are too many white intellectuals and academics who don’t realize that even in the ghetto, many (probably most) black parents want their kids to finish high school, go to college, get married, and raise a family–in that order. Would you ever know that watching the mainstream media?

3. Treat violent black criminals the way that they deserve: prison. Remember that most of the victims of black violent criminals are also black. But the intellectual rationalization that black criminals are victims of a racist and oppressive society means that there are too many excuses made when rapists, murders, robbers, and burglars do horrible things to their family, friends, and neighbors. There’s a reason that violent crime and poverty are associated–and it isn’t because poverty causes violent crime. It’s because violent crime impoverishes everyone with the misfortune to live near violent criminals.

Jun 22, 2009 - 12:54 pm 128. Clayton E. Cramer:

As we sat outside, I moved away from the group prior to one gentlemen telling a story of asking a relative who had recently toured the White House how he enjoyed his visit. His relative answered: I didn’t go to see the White House, I went to see the watermelon patch.

There are people this crude and rude out there? I know that they must exist. I just don’t ever run into them.

Jun 22, 2009 - 12:55 pm 129. Clayton E. Cramer:

So many lines of white slave holders were killed off in the civil war only their black lines survived.

That’s news to me. Remember that any slave owner who had more than 20 slaves was exempt from the Confederate draft (theoretically because they were needed to keep the slaves in line). This is one of the reasons that even Southerners who fought for the Confederacy sometimes called it “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

It is the case that I suspect that most of the wealth that slave owners enjoyed before the war hasn’t passed on to their descendants. The cost of the war was enormous in taxes and in defaulted Confederate and state war bonds. The emancipation of slaves took away much of the wealth.
A typical value for slaves was about $300-$400 (field hands and skilled slaves worth a lot more; aged slaves who were of limited labor value far less); a master with 300 slaves had about $90,000 worth of slaves–equivalent to $2.7 million today. When the war was over, all those slaves were gone–and the land that they worked was now worth a lot less.

And for more than a few, Sherman’s measures meant that there wasn’t even a nice house anymore. There were other forms of destruction as well. My great-great-great-grandfather, Samuel McIlvaine, 10th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, describes how Confederate General Zollicoffer was killed in battle–and the bridge into Nashville in which much of his wealth was located, but destroyed by retreating Confederate forces–impoverishing Zollicoffer’s widow and children.

Jun 22, 2009 - 1:03 pm 130. Clayton E. Cramer:

Because the civil right injustices against African-Americans were federally and legally supported for over 150 years and were rubber stamped or found their origin in the Halls of Congress.

Not just supported: often legally required. Most people don’t realize that it took a lot of governmental action to maintain racial segregation, not just with respect to schools and voting, but in private institutions as well. Go read Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): the statute being challenged was a Louisiana law that did not simply allow railroads to segregate passengers, but required them to do so–with personal fines for officers of the corporation, if the railroad neglected to do so. (Louisiana’s legislators clearly knew that they couldn’t trust that evil capitalists to discriminate otherwise.)

Jun 22, 2009 - 1:17 pm 131. C:

Blotto,
Now I think we are speaking the same language. Let me say that is stinks that you were denied a coaching position on the basis of race. That is wrong and I will be the first to admit that the way affirmative action is implemted is backassward. Believe it or not I too have been denied positions on the basis of my skin color. I don’t see bigotry as a liberal thing or a conserservative thing. It is an idiot thing.

I don’t believe you are an ogre. I took offense to your tone and the all encompassing nature of your comments. You are right when you said I have demons and I work to exorcise them but these are not only my demons. Our society is sick so we all need work on healing.
I would like you to know that I am not as much a slave as you seem to think I am. I get the consequences of aa. I have lived my life with whites of all political persuasion making assumptions about my intelligence or ability when often times, they have not accomplished a 10th of what I have. Sometimes the black guy is actually pretty sharp and is deserving, but the as arguement can be a convient excuse for why a white person did not get the job.

In the martial arts there is a saying, “harmony through conflict.”. I am of left of center mind set. But I am not defined by the del party and that is why I read pjm. I want to challnge myself so I am sure that I am thinking for myself. I agree that we have much in common because you engaged in a constructive dialogue with me.
Peace

Jun 22, 2009 - 1:17 pm 132. Delia:

The problem with unfair advantages bases soley on race is that you have to ‘admit’ you had an unfair advantage.

‘Needing’ an unfair advantage dumbs down people of ALL ethnicities. If you can’t cut the mustard on your own merit, game over.

It’s patently stupid and bigoted for people to actually say, “You’re too ignorant and you’re not as smart as me, therefore, I’ll give you a leg up because Lord knows you couldn’t get anywhere without ‘help’-*cough*”.

Jun 22, 2009 - 1:18 pm 133. Clayton E. Cramer:

Sometimes the black guy is actually pretty sharp and is deserving, but the as arguement can be a convient excuse for why a white person did not get the job.

My experience over the years is that a lot of people find it easier to blame AA than to blame their drinking problem, or their bad attitude, or any of a number of other factors that prevented them from getting a job or a promotion. But I worked as an employment agent in the 1970s, and I saw a lot of, without question, racial discrimination. Northrop Data Systems even put it in writing: “Because this position is currently filled by an EEO double pointer, it must be filled with same.” Meaning a female minority held the current job, and the position was thus reserved for another female minority.

I worked trying to place a guy who went from printer’s devil for the Jehovah’s Witnesses publishing house to systems engineer at Rockwell with no apparent training or education. Then, while working for Rockwell full-time, he completed his BS, MS, and PhD (in Chemistry, Physics, and Cosmology) at a diploma mill over a period of about three years. When I asked him what he did for Rockwell, he could never articulate what his job was. As near as I could tell, it was “Black PhD in charge of filling a quota.” This was beyond AA; this was utter fraud. Rockwell paid him well–and he expected–and received–a good raise to go to another aerospace company that needed a black PhD in charge of filling a quota.

This guy was astonishingly gross, but there were other situations where I think the programmers that I was dealing with might well have been able to do something productive–but since they were hired to meeting AA goals, it didn’t much matter what they did. One Hispanic guy I interviewed was hired out of college by IBM. He had worked on one project shortly after hiring–but for 14 months, IBM had him sitting in their Westlake Village office, reading magazines. They gave him nothing to do. He wanted a real job. (And leaving IBM, which paid well, and at the time had a policy of lifetime employment, would have been difficult.) Was he incompetent? I doubt that they could have figured out from one project of a couple months duration. (Remember: fresh college graduate.) This was an outrage.

There was one young black woman that I found a job for who was the victim of AA. She had good references, and good experience, writing mainframe business accounting programs. But I noticed that while her first job seemed like it had treated her like she mattered, her second job had given her very undemanding work–and her third job, which I placed her at, with an aerospace company, sounded like they were going to again put her aside, not because she wasn’t capable, but because they really didn’t need her skills–except her skill at filling a racial quota.

I had one occasion where I placed a guy who was clearly very sharp, with excellent references. It was among the most embarrassing experiences, because he was light enough that I had to ask him his race–because the employer needed to know, before they would interview him.

I’m sick of the excuses that get made for racial discrimination.

Jun 22, 2009 - 1:42 pm 134. rssg:

Ha, ha….it’ll never end, never. Just about every country/region in the world had slavery and a few still do today.

The bigger issue today is not black vs white, it’s American vs never-ending, mass immigration of foreigners.

Many Americans trace their ancestry back here for multiple generations, hundreds of years. We are not a “nation of immigrants”, just like we are not “all immigrants”. Both are gross over-simplifications and thus meaningless.

Jun 22, 2009 - 3:07 pm 135. SukieTawdry:

Apologizing on “behalf of the people,” Senators? Gee, that’s kind of presumptuous, don’t you think? If you want to apologize for the part the US Senate played in institutionalizing slavery and Jim Crow, knock yourselves out, but don’t you dare presume to do so on my behalf. Who do I see to get my name removed from this resolution?

Gawd but I despise the Senate. More so all the time.

Jun 22, 2009 - 3:20 pm 136. WhyamInotsurprised?:

This is politics run-a-mok. This is another instance when repubicans need to say “NO” one more time. But they go along lest they be labelled racist. This has to stop somewhere, sometime. The dems are the active agent in the solution and are allowed to ferment hatred when Our Fearless Reader says he wants to calm things down. It is all BS!

I worked in Las Vegas for the better part of a year inspecting Section 8 housing for a friend who had a real estate business there. I quit because I became depressed. Most of the tenants receiving basically free housing through Section 8 where black. The houses they were provided were one to two years old. At then end of their lease, many of the houses were mostly destroyed.

So in addition to free rent for a year at taxpayer cost, they left behind many thousands of dollars in damage that the owners had to deal with. No economic benefit that I could see.

One time, I had a moment to enter into a discussion with some black folks who were taking care of their place. We discussed some politics and I made a statement about blacks trading one form of slavery for another. They were interested in what I said. They did not get mad, nor defensive. They asked me what i meant. And I related to them a brief history of the treatment of blacks since the civil war, none of which they were aware of. And when I mentioned that democrats where the main instigators of ghettos, welfare which broke up black families and took away incentive to work, they looked at me with incredulity. And then I said, “did you know that Pres. Lincoln was a republican?” Their jaws dropped open. They never knew that. And they said, “Man, you sure know a lot.” And I said “I read a lot.” I then encouraged them to read, that is was a good way to understand the world and interpret what goes on day-to-day. It was a civil discussion. No anger, no name calling. Just people willing to listen to a side of things they knew nothing about.

However, I have to say that they were the exception. Most tenants lived the lie, played the systems to milk all the tax payer benefits they could and had no respect for private property or the benefits they enjoyed. I quit because this system was broken and it was seeing the hopelessness of the situation that was depressing.

My assessment is that while people are impoverished for whatever reason, the best thing is tough love. Take away the government teat and help them to their feet. But that is not the goal of democrats. They get votes for their largess in our name and until the faucet is turned off. That day is coming because the teat is running dry.

Jun 22, 2009 - 9:18 pm 137. sheesh:

OK, never mind . . . I’ll take care of the hard work for you . . . you all can just go on planning your tea parties to express the need for justice and solidarity and looking out for each other . . . the best of America.

William in #83 . . . You’re an imbecile. Your comment is racist, indefensible, and represents the worst, most vile type of human weakness. We can only hope any children around you are sufficiently insulated from your blind and ignorant rage.

See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Please, continue with your obfuscation.

Jun 23, 2009 - 6:30 am 138. Banned by Huffpo:

108. BWAHAHAHA! Or a nitnoid.

Jun 23, 2009 - 6:57 am 139. WhyamInotsurprised?:

A troll by any other name … sheesh aka. “banned by huffpp”

Jun 23, 2009 - 7:39 am 140. Steve:

This entire essay is intellectually dishonest at best. Yes no American’s alive are guilty or slavery nor are any direct victims of it. However the sons and daughters of slaves and slave owners are still alive in many instances. Yes they are all over the age of 80 but they are still here. Also, many of the victims and perpetrators of Jim Crow are alive today. My father grew up with segregation in Virginia and various forms of institutional racism all of his life. I am only 28 and am the first generation in my family to truly be free in this country. It is an uncomfortable and unfortunate fact, but is a fact nonetheless. I don’t say this as a victim, but as a victor whose family has survived and thrived in the nation for hundreds of years and only recently have had equality under the law within the last generation.

Jun 23, 2009 - 11:26 am 141. Delia:

140. Steve,

Do you believe only ‘whites’ are racists though? Do you realize that there are black/latina/Asian/Indian/et al racists?

Do you accept and understand that there were Arabs and Blacks who were slave owners and slave traders? Do you realize there is still slavery going on in Africa and Arab parts of the country? Do you understand that ALL ethnicities have been slaves at one time?

Do you think the word ‘racist’ is akin to saying we are different ‘races’ rather than the HUMAN RACE?

I grew up poor and I was discriminated against for being poor. What about impoverished people of ALL colors?

Jun 23, 2009 - 11:49 am 142. Delia:

‘latina’ was supposed to be ‘Latin’ btw.

Jun 23, 2009 - 11:50 am 143. c:

WhyamIsosuprised’

The problem with free anything is that you do not value what you do not earn. That is the trap of handouts. But simple pulling the programs is not going to work. We need to focus on teaching people how to escape the cycle of poverty and create a welfare system (used for lack of a better word) that rewards work and does not encourage slacking. I guarantee that if the people in section 8 housing had ownership in those homes, they would not trach them.

One person said that the only reason Blacks do not embrass conservatism is because we have been fooled. We I and several of my peers reject the Republican party because there is just enough outward hostility toward us that we feel we are choosing the lesser of two evils. A significant number of Blacks choose not to vote because they figure they lose either way. I figure that too many good people of all racesto give me the vote so I do. Also, to be a Black Republican is to be a sell out in many Black people’s eyes. It is very ironic in that my grandparents and parents support a more prochoice platform, are pro-traditional marriage, love their guns, believe in God, and hold traditional values. The Republivcan should be in the communities pointing out what they have to offer and quell the voices of the loud obnoxious minority in the party.

Finally, Crammer, are you a history professor or something. I really enjoyed reading you perspective.

Jun 23, 2009 - 2:22 pm 144. dck:

This is an issue that truly irritates me; I owe NOTHING to Black America, beyond the ordinary requirements of shared citizenship and simple courtesy. In fact, how about a refund of my mispent taxes over the past 45 years, the ones that were promised to bring a final historical end to this problem?

Use your head. The only member of my family in the U.S. PRIOR to the emancipation proclamation was a Jewish tailor living in Boston. He had emigrated from Prussia, a place not known for welcoming Jews. His eldest son, my great-grandfather, served in the union navy, underaged, and fought in the 2nd battle of Fort Fisher, where his ship was partly dismasted and his life at risk. “In response to a coming shell,” he tried to hide his 17 year old face behind the powder bags he was carrying to the guns. He was the first son of the first generation of any of my family born in the U.S. Will African-Americans thank me for his service? Or will the response more likely be even more angry accusation and complaint, perhaps some half-baked boilerplate of Leftist “analysis,” by which his was no service at all to Black Americans?

And I want to know who is going to apologize and pay me for MY ancestor’s bad historical experiences?

–The Quakers in England, one of whom was thrown into “high gaol” in Exeter, with other members of the family driven from their home onto the streets in the dead of winter, and the tools of the trade by which they made their living taken, all because they refused on religious grounds (no sworn oaths) to swear allegiance to Charles II at the Restoration.

–Who will apologize for the centuries of insult and abuse endured by the German Jews of my family, already mentioned, for the pogroms and general anti-semitism (the mother was Austro-Hungarian)they knew everyday before coming to America–where today the most virulent anti-Semites are American Blacks. They owe an apology to my great-grandfather.

–The Scots in my family, who emigrated to Nova Scotia in Canada, I suspect did so in response to the Battle of Culloden and its aftermath, where the wounded were finished off on the battlefield and the English then set out to destroy the clans, banning Gaelic and attacking all elments of the culture to make it “English.”

–How about the Welsh, also my ancestors, who have been battered and oppressed by the English for centuries; surely they deserve an apology?

–And since my name is Saxon in origin, why haven’t the French apologized and paid reparations for Hastings, in 1066, and the cultural holocaust that followed for Anglo-Saxons? And while we’re at it, why are “Racism” and “Imperialism” laid at the door of “Ango-Saxons,” since they had no power in England after 1066? It was transplanted French, and later Dutch and Germans who ran England; crack a history book sometime. Welshmen, Scots, Cornishmen,and Anglo-Saxons–my ancestors–were strong backs and cannon fodder for the British Empire, when they weren’t getting cuffed around by it.

Go back into your ancestry far enough and in the rough-and-tumble world of history you will find both victim and victimizer. Obama’s mother gave him slave-owner blood, as I understand it. His Kenyan father gave him NO American “slave blood.” Based on the “reasoning” being applied in certain parts of the culture, Obama “owes” an apology to black Americans far more than I do; though I suppose I shouldn’t encourage him. It was the ENGLISH who forcibly ended Western slavery, largely due to the heroic determination of William Wilberforce, not the Kenyans. And Muslim Africans, like Obama’s father, were the ones who brutally captured slaves in East and Central Africa for the Arabs, the worst historical slavers of all.

This whole “apology” issue is silly: self-pitying, petulant, morally inane, idiotic, useless, even contemptible. It’s just a prelude to another robbery of the Treasury.

Black Americans have already been given more passionate support, more blood, and more money by their “oppressors” (if you mean the “Western world,” and “whites” in general) than any other victimized group in recorded history. We fought the bloodiest, nastiest war in our own history to settle finally the issue of slavery, after arguing violently over it for decades. Following that(in less than 100 years: nothing in historical time), the KKK was suppressed and we wrote the civil rights laws complete with decades of busing and affirmative action to correct any lingering effects. We have spent an estimated 6 trillion dollars since then on various programs to “alleviate” the “consequences” of slavery and its attendant racism in this country. Nowhere else in history will you find something like this. We owe nothing.

In the majority, the heroes of anti-slavery are white (apologies may be due to Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman), and appear at most of the crucial points. Many struggled for decades and suffered terrible fates. Black Americans owe their THANKS to these whites, who extended the hand of service to the cause of Freedom and legal equality, and sincere friendship in time of need. What the hell is wrong with you?

I look at people all around us today who have truly suffered some horror, who have come to this country, worked hard and succeeded–like my neighbor, Dahlia, whose father and brother were just kidnapped by drug dealers in Juarez, Mexico, and haven’t been seen since–and I’m filled with sympathy and admiration. I look at the Reverend Wrights of this country, their congregants, and apologists, and I feel something else entirely.

This opinion is the cumulative observation of a lifetime–and I have confronted and questioned it all along the line of its development. Don’t bother me with tearful stories of being called a name or being treated “funny;” don’t waste your time with self-serving, manipulative labels you think apply to me, nor with quantums of ideological claptrap.

Just Do the Right Thing: Give It a Rest.

–dck

Jun 23, 2009 - 6:18 pm 145. Class Clown:

Slavery was foisted on the U.S.A. as a legacy of the European empires. The first slaves came a century before the U.S. was even created. The Northern half of the U.S. had no slavery, and that same northern half (which included a significant majority of the American population) put an end to slavery at a great cost of blood and treasure.

So unless you are asking me to apologize for my ancestors having fought and died in the Union Army, I’m not about to say I’m sorry for anything.

Jun 24, 2009 - 11:34 pm 146. pappy:

re: CJ, the way things are going muslims may soon become the largest holder of white slaves, at least white politicians.

Jun 25, 2009 - 5:10 am 147. letfredomring:

The most important thing is to realize that slavery still exists on a large scale…in the prison population, with alcohol and drugs and your credit rating, being made to pay for things that should be free like housing, healthcare, childcare and public utilities it’s all designed to control masses of people no matter what color you are, slavery definitely still does exist. People have to literally abandon thier families to go to work for minimal pay everyday, they live in houses that thier pets get to enjoy more than they do and working long hours to do it really does amount to slavery. America is so far behind right now on how people are being cared for socially.

Oct 31, 2009 - 1:51 pm 148. Stanton:

People from Jim Crow are still alive, so an apology is well in order…someone needs to do it. Racism against blacks is still going on as we speak…

You need to get the chip off your shoulder and accept that someone needs to in some way right the wrong done to the black race for Jim Crow and Slavery, Jim Crow did a whole lot of bad things in many different ways, and the remenants of those days are still here.

It has only been 40 years. Having a black president doesn’t change the fact that racism against blacks still happen, such as shopping while black and driving while black and being black in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Covert racism is considered socially acceptable considering I see alot of whites subscribe to it. At least in the Jim Crow days whites had enough guts to admit being racist.

I don’t want an apology for slavery, but I do want one not for just Jim Crow but for the atrocious covert racist behavior found in most whites today.

Nov 12, 2009 - 6:37 am 149. trinie:

You can just tell this is a white supremacist blog by all the whiny whites who are ungrateful for being white in a world that praises and caters to whites…

I can only pray when whites become the minority they experience EXACTLY what they put people of color through. It is well deserved.

Nov 12, 2009 - 6:41 am

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed)
Comments: