From the ArcaMax Publishing, Clarence Page Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/clarencepage/s-568209-128702
What if Congress apologized for slavery and nobody cared?
The Senate on Thursday followed the House in voting to apologize for
slavery and the Jim Crow segregation that followed it.
In other words, it only took almost 150 years and the election of an
African American who is not descended from slavery to move Congress to
apologize for slavery.
Thanks, senators, but you're a little late. As "senior black
correspondent" Larry Wilmore quipped on The Daily Show: "I thought
Obama's election was our apology."
He was joking, but not by much. After all, part of the appeal of
Obama's victory was its symbolic message of post-racial optimism: We
were ready as a diverse nation to stand together as Martin Luther King
Jr. dreamed, put our ugly racial past behind us and look to a better
future.
By contrast, the slavery apology issue erupts at a convenient time for
Congress but an inconvenient distraction for Obama.
Talk of slavery apologies leads to the more volatile dollars-and-sense
issue of monetary reparations, which counters Obama's come-together
optimism with a taint of old-school "Where's mine?" political spoils.
To ease its passage, the Senate resolution contains a significant
escape clause: It is not to serve as a basis for any lawsuit against
the United States. That means the measure did not have to address the
racially divisive issue of whether we, the descendants of American
slavery, are owed any financial reparations.
Minus that thorny issue, the resolution passed so quickly that it
almost made papers fly around the room. With no political or monetary
cost attached, opposition to slavery is so easy even a bipartisan
coalition of senators can do it, especially by a voice vote.
Yet, after a year of work on the resolution, sponsors Tom Harkin
(D-Iowa) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) found reason to celebrate. The
House passed a similar measure last July. The Senate passed an apology
for Native Americans in February 2008 . Again, it was better late
than never, I suppose, but not by much.
The House apology did not contain a no-reparations clause like the
Senate version. That's led to a talk of a reconsideration of the
measure in the House next week to conform the resolution to the Senate
version.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus oppose the change. That
could lead to an awkward situation of black members of Congress
opposing a slavery apology. That's what you get, ladies and gentlemen,
for trying to score good feelings on the cheap.
Since the resolution does not require the president's signature, each
house of Congress probably would be best off passing its own version.
The senators and congressmen can pose for pictures, smile and quietly
forget about their resolutions as they move on to issues that are
effecting people's lives today -- like jobs, the financial markets,
health care, global warming and, oh, yes, two overseas wars.
The reparations issue is becoming more trouble than it is worth,
partly because most of my fellow descendants of slavery don't have
much agreement on what our reparations ought to be.
Harvard law Prof. Charles Ogletree, a consultant for the Senate
resolution, has helped waged successful lawsuits aimed at insurance
companies, universities and others who profited from slavery. The
courts are a better recourse than Congress when you have specific
offenders and the paperwork to back up your case. But most of
slavery's legacy is not so conveniently documented.
This long after the offense, it is not easy to assess damages. The
original victims of slavery are long dead. With each passing year, it
is more difficult to trace whose descendants might be owed what.
"Forty acres and a mule," the suggestion offered orally but never
legally at the end of the Civil War, doesn't mean what it used to.
Reparations for segregation are no less problematic. Some of us are
old enough to remember legal segregation of schools, jobs, housing,
hotels, public restrooms and drinking fountains. But how do you put a
price on that?
Obama's got the right idea. The damage of slavery and segregation can
best be undone by all of us Americans' keeping our promises to the
next generations. We need to help every child to have access to decent
schools, housing and nutrition -- regardless of race, creed or
ancestral conditions of servitude.
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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com, or write to him c/o
Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY
14207.