‘I’m sorry’ just isn’t enough

Monday, 7/7/97 ‘I’m sorry’ just isn’t enough President’s gesture
would only graze surface of race problem

On June 15, while speaking on the campus of UC San Diego,
President Clinton attempted to do something previous presidents of
the United States have either completely ignored, or glazed over
without serious attention. He addressed the "race problem" in
America. As W.E.B. DuBois stated that the problem of the 20th
century would be the color line, the president said, "Of all the
questions of discrimination and prejudice that still exist today in
our society, the most perplexing one is the oldest, and in some
ways today the newest: The problem of race." To go even further
with the issue, the president is now considering giving a formal
apology to African Americans for the crime of slavery which was
committed against their ancestors. The idea for an apology came to
Clinton after 10 white members of Congress introduced possible
legislation asking Congress to apologize "to African Americans
whose ancestors suffered as slaves under the Constitution and laws
of the United States until 1865." Clinton stated, "Just to say that
it’s wrong and that we’re sorry about it is not a bad thing. That
doesn’t weaken us." However, he also stated that such an apology
would be void of financial reparations, something which many
African Americans feel is way overdue. Reactions on the subject of
an apology among African and white Americans is mixed. House
Speaker Newt Gingrich stated that an apology would only be
"emotional symbolism," and that "to see a great apology for
slavery, go to the Lincoln Memorial." Harvard law school professor
Christopher Edley stated, "Our problem is the lingering ideology of
racial difference and caste, along with the inherited economic
disadvantages of slavery and segregation. So long as the subtle
legacy of slavery remains, an apology would be superficial, not
reflective of the moral change truly required of America." Since I
am speaking of race, I must of course say that when I speak in
terms of black and white, I do not wish to generalize. When one
says "white people do this," there’s always at least one white
liberal with dreadlocks and a T-shirt of Sitting Bull who claims to
be different from the other white folks. Still, a majority of
whites (liberals included) remain completely ignorant of the fact
that slavery was only the beginning of a long line of oppression
for African Americans which would carry on well into the 20th
century. One can talk to white people until they’re blue in the
face about exactly how bad slavery was (believe me, I’ve tried it),
and how over 60 million Africans lost their lives in the Black
Holocaust; yet they are more concerned with the banality of
modernism and soap-opera reality. Secondly, a vast majority of
whites, liberals included, refuse to admit that they are the direct
benefactors of slavery and oppression. And why should they feel bad
for slavery? After all, if it wasn’t for slavery and the systematic
wiping out of indigenous peoples all over the world, white folks
wouldn’t be on top right now, so why apologize? Whites (again, I
don’t want to generalize, for fear of being labeled extremist) also
feel as if their privileged status in American society is due to
the amount of sweat and blood shed building the United States. Yet
they fail to acknowledge that they have attained their success in
America by standing on the backs of African Americans, who formed
the engine of American society via slavery. Still, when the 4th of
July comes around, never are the African Americans, who had
everything taken from them and who built a country, praised for
their numerous sacrifices. Of course the criticism coming from
other groups, particularly Jews, is, "Look what we’ve been through!
If we can do it, then why can’t you?" Granted, the Jews did go
through a horrific holocaust (6 million deaths in Nazi Germany),
yet they still had a hell of a lot of help getting over their
holocaust. And everybody has apologized for the Jewish Holocaust.
The German government has apologized for the Holocaust, and has
since done a superb job of educating the youth about the terror of
Nazi Germany’s past. The United States is today helping Jewish
survivors of the Holocaust get back some of their monetary losses
suffered at the hands of the Nazis. There are Holocaust museums in
Germany. There is a huge Holocaust museum in this country, which
came from funds provided by the government. When I was in high
school, we had a Jewish Holocaust survivor come and speak to our
school about it. When I was in grammar school, we had to read the
"Diary of Anne Frank," and see the movie afterward. Yet that
Holocaust didn’t even occur on U.S. soil, while the Black Holocaust
did. But nobody ever wants to talk about the Black Holocaust, which
occurred in this country, and claimed far more victims than the
Jewish Holocaust. In 1988, the U.S. government gave an official
apology and appropriated funds to Japanese Americans interned by
the government during World War II. We also cannot leave out the
recent apology Clinton gave to survivors of the Tuskegee syphilis
experiments, when black men were unknowingly infected by the U.S.
government with syphilis and then left untreated so that the
government could study the disease. Other countries have gone on
record apologizing for past wrongs. Britain’s new prime minister
Tony Blair recently offered an apology to the Irish and their
descendants for the potato famine of 150 years ago. Japanese Prime
Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto apologized to Korea for Japan’s
oppression and rape of Koreans during WWII. Also, there is South
Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an attempt to heal
South Africa’s apartheid-era wounds, without punishing those
responsible for racial crimes during that period. By this time, I
am sure most of my white readers are thinking, "Here we go again,
with the ‘I am the victim’ routine." Maybe that’s true, and in that
case, I do not think that African Americans can, or even should
look for an apology from white people for slavery. No one today can
escape the horrors of Nazi Germany and the Jewish Holocaust because
we have films of mountains of bodies being stacked by American GIs,
emptied into mass graves. Yet how can one dispute and ignore the
existence of the Black Holocaust? What about the face of Emmit
Till, the fire hoses in Montgomery, Alabama, or the photographs of
African American men whose backs had been torn to shreds from
repeated whippings? Will it take mountains of over 60 million black
bodies on the six o’clock news for white people to understand that
slavery was wrong? Are 60 million lives lost worthy of any apology?
Realistically, I think an apology for slavery would probably do
more for whites than it would ever do for blacks. It would sort of
have an "Indian Powwow" effect: For a day, white folks get to
immerse themselves in Indian culture, song and dance. However, at
the end of the day, they hop into their Lexuses and drive off to
Bel Air. An apology is no good when Prop 187 and 209 passed and
Geronimo Pratt sat in jail for 27 years. Bottom line on the
apology? White folks, realize that the history you learned in
school was B.S. (not the degree you earn in college). Learn the
true history of this country from people other than your own
community. After you find that truth, provide funding for a Black
Holocaust museum in your part of town. Teach your children that the
founding fathers were rapists and murderers and not to be racist as
hell when they grow up. Black people, brown people and red people:
Don’t ask for an apology from white folks. Even if one was given,
it would not relieve your fears of getting beaten up by the LAPD,
of having swastikas spray-painted on your garage door along with
the words "Nigger get out," of your kids being called niggers in
school, and of not being able to hold a decent job because of the
color of your skin, etc. In order for our society to change for the
better, the American educational system first must go through a
drastic restructuring process. Black and white people have
completely different perceptions of American history. Until a
middle ground can be found, an apology would barely graze the
surface of an ocean of issues which have not yet been discussed.
However, in light of events like the passage of Prop 209, it is
likely that the already huge gulf between black and white people
will continue to expand. While the quality of education decreases,
the socio-economic gap between rich and poor continues to grow and
racist attitudes prevail in America, a solution to the "race
problem" in the near future seems very unlikely. The future, I am
sure, holds nothing but confrontation. Buckle your seat belts!
Victor Patton