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.

[Brainwalter]

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It's not a matter of choice or culpability. It's matter of unfair advantages and rectifying them. It's saying, "We're sorry we completely [censored] you guys up for many generations. We will try to make sure you have the means to better yourselves."

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Since when is life supposed to be fair?

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Since enough people said so.

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Yay democracy!

-------------------
Proposition 1: Make Life Fair
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

Proposition 2: No Rain on Weekends
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

Proposition 3: No gay marriage!
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

[pvn]

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"Virginia" didn't play any part in the slave trade. People did. Those people are dead. The people that are living today did not play any part in it. The people who apologized apologized for someone else's actions.

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This is one of the most disingenuous arguments coming from someone who constantly rails against the government. You can't have it both ways...either the government/state is a unique entity that can do both good and bad things or it isn't.

The US isn't taxing you...individual people are. The state US didn't invade Iraq...individual people did. Virginia didn't do anything wrong in the slave trade...individual people did. The Virginia/"the government"/ABC corporation are all (appropriately so) treated as "people" albeit in a slightly different way...they are people whose life can theoretically last in perpetuity.

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What's disingenious? I don't care if "the US" is taxing me or "individual people" are, the act is still objectionable. That doesn't mean I'm interested in blaming the first scapegoat I can get my hands on.

[andyfox]

The First Emancipator by Andrew Levy. It's about Robert Carter III, one of Virginia's wealthiest slaveholders, a friend of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, how he freed his 450 slaves, and how he's absent from our history books.

[BCPVP]

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Sure the South fought hard to keep it, but that was becuase their entire economy was built on it.

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I don't think you can claim the entire economy was based on it when 75% did not own slaves.

And I've heard that if you read many of the letters written by Rebel soldiers, most felt that they were fighting for their homeland and to repel the "invaders".

[Money2Burn]

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Sure the South fought hard to keep it, but that was becuase their entire economy was built on it.

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I don't think you can claim the entire economy was based on it when 75% did not own slaves.

And I've heard that if you read many of the letters written by Rebel soldiers, most felt that they were fighting for their homeland and to repel the "invaders".

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Sure, it wasn't their ENTIRE economy, I was exaggerating. You would agree that the Southern economy was primarily agricultural based at the time slavery was abolished? Also, without slavery southern agriculture wouldn't have been close to what it was then.

If we go by soldier's sentiments to find the reasons wars were fought, then the current war should be judged much differently than it currently is.

The point I was trying to get at is that it's not like Virginia, or any other state, "revolutionized" slavery and made it magnitudes worse of a thing than it had been for the thousands of years it has been in existance. It bothers me that, so often people act like we were the only people in the history of the world that had slaves. As bad as the institution of slavery was in retrospect, at the time our country was founded slavery was not looked at in the same light. To condem our ancestors for utilizing an institution that had not been determined to be wholly wrong at the time they were using it seems completely ridiculous to me. Far worse, to me, is the way we treated black people after slavery was abolished and that is where the focus should be placed not on the fact that we used slavery.

[pvn]

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Far worse, to me, is the way we treated black people after slavery was abolished and that is where the focus should be placed not on the fact that we used slavery.

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I'm assuming you're no longer pro-apartheid since you say this treatment was bad, but for how long were you pro-apartheid? How many slaves did you own?

[bluesbassman]

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The First Emancipator by Andrew Levy. It's about Robert Carter III, one of Virginia's wealthiest slaveholders, a friend of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, how he freed his 450 slaves, and how he's absent from our history books.

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Funny you should mention that... my great-great-whatever grandfather is Robert "King" Carter, who is Robert Carter III's grandfather. (I'm not sure whether I am directly descended from Robert III.) Not that I think that lineage implies anything about me whatsoever, good or bad. However, I suppose some of the posters in this thread would consider me "guilty" of oppression against black people due to the wrong doings of (some of) my ancestors.

[elwoodblues]

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However, I suppose some of the posters in this thread would consider me "guilty" of oppression against black people due to the wrong doings of (some of) my ancestors.

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I doubt you would find any in this thread who assign such guilt.

[pvn]

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However, I suppose some of the posters in this thread would consider me "guilty" of oppression against black people due to the wrong doings of (some of) my ancestors.

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I doubt you would find any in this thread who assign such guilt.

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There sure are a lot of people talking about how "we" enslaved blacks and "we" imposed segregation etc. Sure sounds like assigning guilt to me.