Letters

Wednesday, December 3, 1997

U.S. must act for a change

The issue of an apology for slavery and the long-term oppression
of African Americans should be a no-brainer. The U.S. government
was, at best, complacent in allowing an unspeakable injustice to be
brought down upon human beings living within its borders. At worst,
the U.S. government encouraged and exploited this injustice (among
other injustices) to build the nation we currently live in.
Allowing the long-term perpetuation of this injustice, failing to
provide even the most basic rights of citizenship until barely more
than 30 years ago, will be to our nation’s eternal shame. The first
step is admitting, as a nation, that we have a problem. Once we can
do that, maybe we have the courage to begin to address the crushing
inequality of opportunity still faced by African Americans, and, to
a lesser degree, other people of color in this nation. It is our
moral obligation to try, and to try whole-heartedly.

Incidentally, the question of whether other nations and groups
apologize for the wrongs that they have wrought is not relevant
­ if they systematically executed their poorest individuals,
that would not make it acceptable for the United States to do the
same. We, the people of the United States, need to put our moral
house in order and start leading by example rather than through
hypocritical rhetoric about human rights.

John Hetts

Graduate student

Social psychology