Virginia apologizes for slavery... why?

[John Kilduff]

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No American Indian today is any more trapped in poverty than any white person born today into equally poor circumstances.

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That is to ignore the power of culture and the ongoing influence of history. What does it do to a culture when its people are murdered en masse, driven from the land they occupy, and forced into tiny tracts of land to live in poverty? How many generations does it take to recover from that?

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As the other poster said, are we talking about "culture" or about people's lives? It might take 2 to 4 generations for people to get fully back on their feet materially and situationally; not 6 or 10. There would be damages done to certain aspects of culture that could never be repaired.

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The second problem I see with your logic chain is your assertion that you or I are somehow "benefitting" from this. The chain of causal links is far too old and impure and branched for any such determination to be made.

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Yet here you are, sitting on land from which others were driven.

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As is probably everyone else in the world so sitting on such land, as well.

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Naturally, we can't know what history might have held in store had we not committed that genocide,

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I didn't commit it. You may kindly start leaving me out of your "we's", please; thank you.

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but we do know our ability to enjoy a comfortable life is in part at the expense of the American Indian.

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That isn't known at all. You or I could just as easily have been born anywhere else in the world. We also have no idea what history would have been like had the American Indians not been victimized on large scale. We might be better or worse off, or be alive or never have been born, or whatever. There is no way to know, period. If the Indians had not been pushed over, I might have been born into a much more beautiful natural country in this continent of North America and be living much more in harmony with nature and might have a much better life than I have now. Thre is no way to even guess.

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Just off the top of my head... we could start by giving them several sizable states, no?

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Well, no, I would say definitely not. That perhaps should have been maybe a hundred years ago and when some of today's states were mere territories, but now it is far too late...

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Where do you draw the line? You know, my grandmother was born just four years after Geronimo surrendered to Crook. It really wasn't that long ago. It may seem a long time to you. Perhaps you're young; I don't know. But if you're older than about 40 you must know how short a time a hundred years or so really is.

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That is indeed short in the perspective of humanity, but it is long in the perspective of my life and yours. You're asking many present day people to give up most of their lives to try to partially right a wrong that occurred many generations ago. And the strangest part is, the actual actors involved on both sides of that history are nearly all deceased; most are long deceased.


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How could that possibly be fair to those who have built their entire lives in those states? Does it really, really seem fair to you?

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Do you think redress should involve no sacrifice on anyone's part?

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It should generally involve little or no sacrifice on the part of those not involved in the cause of the problem. You're going further, though: you're asking that people not involved in the cause of the problem make enormous sacrifices so that those not severely victimized by the problem may reap enormous windfall.

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What do you think about this idea: every past major group injustice that occurred throughout history should be retraced and people should be relocated to their original lands, as best as possible, and maybe reparations should be made as well.

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Actually, the specific idea I tossed out was just intended to provoke some thought. I don't pretend to know the best solution. But we have done *so* little that there should be plenty to do between nothing and the rather absurd scenario you describe.

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What is absurd about the American Indian tribes today receiving, as they do: free land, free money, full rights of citizenship, preferential admission to college, and preferential treatment as far as owning highly profitable entereprises (including casinos), including even a preferential tax treatment of certain such enterprises? Why do you believe that is not enough for the current generation to make progress? I agree it doesn't "right the wrongs" of generations ago, but those wrongs simply cannot be righted. Punishing a current generation of people not responsible, in order to try to right the wrongs of generations past (which cannot be righted anyway) doesn't make sense to me. The advantages the Indian tribes are today provided with are significant in today's society.

I have a feeling that you're looking for justice at any price, without fully realizing the injustices of the solutions you may be proposing. The odd thing is that the solution you propose (giving Indians several states today) really wouldn't rectify things anyway. It would just assuage those who have strong guilt complexes over something which they have no reality-based reason to feel guilty about, and make instant multimillionaires of people who are merely lucky enough today to win the reparations lottery by having ancestors who were oppressed.