Confederate history month

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i dont think anyone was trying to weasel out or saying apoligizing was a bad thing, you just said that yourself, im just curious as to what good it would do, i mean do you think whites and blacks, after hearing the message however it had been broadcast would run into the streets and frantically start hugging each other? or that every black person in America would accept it?as for ancestors not owning slaves, i cant really tell you if mine did or not, although my mother tells me im related to Ulysses S. Grant, but most of the time i just think shes cuckoo, even then it wouldnt matter, i never said it didnt happen nor have i said anything like "well MMYYY ancestors didnt own any slaves so why the fuck should i care" but honestly what good do you think would come of it?

I think both the apology and history month ideas are dumb.Why is it we all need to keep raising this issue when forgetting about it is what would lead to it's disappearance? I think some folks want to perpetuate this issue forevermore for whatever reason. I wish we could all just let it (and racism) die. Instead we (as a culture) seem obsessed with continuing to breath life into it.

To a great many people the world over the injuries of the past still hurt and effect their lives today, regardless of whether or not it is seen or felt by others.What the affect of an apology would be is debatable but what most fail to realize is that saying, "get over it" or "everybody who did it is dead" does nothing but pour salt on old but still open wound for the people who's live are still effected by old, long gone, institutions and largely forgotten actions.Perhaps "get over it" and "quit whining about it" would be a healthier approach for those who history has abused and oppressed, perhaps not, but regardless that is not the reality of the world we are in. The one thing we know is ignoring cultural memory does nothing to ease the injuries of the past... so what could an apology hurt.

Good points, Scotty.

She left you for converse ?

Quote:They wouldn't have to use up any money. They could designate it as a non-binding resolution, which is self-explanatory. So, the idea that tax dollars would be wasted is a complete cop out.I didn't say anything about money.

Originally Posted By: GrvtykllrShe left you for converse ? LMFAOhey now... don't be a loser and go hijacking Kristal's thread

LOL. I thought you said money in place of the government using x amount of hours. Okay, I'm fitting the stereotype of the dumb black chick.runs and hides in the back of the bus

you look so natural as a blonde

I've been thinking about this conversation and have come to realize a few things.

I do not understand the idea of an apology from someone of the present about something that happened in the past before their own life time. Let me explain further.

Classy, as you know I live in Georgia and my blood is very mixed. (Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, German, Scottish, Irish, Native American blood). A person with knowledge of history would probably see a lot of irony in my mix of blood alone.

With that being said, I never felt very attached and/or very proud about a particular kind of history that is supposedly me. In other words, if I felt very attached and/or very proud about my Filipino side of my blood, then I may feel a big injustice has been done to me by the Spanish people or government. If I felt very attached to Native American side of my blood, then I may feel a big injustice has been done to me by Europeans, Spanish people whatever. I don't feel attached to any particular group of people and I don't feel that an injustice has been done to me.

So, I don't feel like anyone owes me anything. I hope this clears up what I mean when I say I lack understanding of the idea of an apology and how it could be constructive. Maybe you could explain your position on the matter.

Quote:WebSex, you are a modern day AMERICAN - nobody owes you ANYTHING!And aint that the truth...Ya damn right! The other thing about it I don't get is the people who will be making the apology (if they decide to apologize) will most likely be someone who did not participate in slavery... So, wouldn't an apology from someone that didn't actually do anything seem illegitimate anyway?

I don't think it would be illegitimate because the apology isn't from a person to a person, it's to group of people from a government that allowed, condoned and even promoted heinous, inhuman laws, policies and actions. While the people who participated in the institution may be long gone the government and societies that participated are not.As for letting sleeping dogs lie, what if the dogs aren't sleeping for everybody. What if the dogs are only sleeping for the "modern day American". As was said before, just because one group no longer feels the effects (or more generally and accurately, benefits) of a policy that doesn't mean that the subjugated group no longer feels it's injury. When the success of one society is built on the blood, sweat and tears of another, usually it's going to be dismissed and conveniently forgotten by the preponderant but remembered and still very much alive for the culture that was trampled underfoot. For good or for ill that is the reality of cultural memory. Ignoring ill will doesn't generally alleviate it, be it on a personal level, a cultural level or a governmental level. That is not to say an apology would either but perhaps it's at least a step in that direction.Classy's Confederate history month is a prime example of cultural memory. For many in the south the war is not a thing of the distant past. The injuries and humiliations suffered are very much a real and present thing. In Oklahoma there are parts of the state Northerner's or left coaster's simply shouldn't go into if their car tag or accent betrays them. They would literally be run out of town. There are many old Creole families, some I personally know, that still refer to everyone else as "the Americans" and see themselves as different even while living and working in what was a bustling metropolis.I have my doubts that it's appropriate or even wise to ask those for whom the past is important to "forget it" or "ignore it". I'm not sure they could do that if they wanted to and for some, stories of the past are all they have. How grandpa wouldn't back down from the Klan, or how grandma got cheated out what little she had, or how uncle billy hung from that tree over there, are important parts of what make someone who they are. Just because those stories aren't favorable to one group or inconveniently paint it in a bad light make them no less valid or important and certainly not something that should be forgotten by those who descend from them.How to handle cultural memory and redress past wrongs to achieve a better hegemony are important question that will only grow as time goes on. A dialogue on how to achieve a more cohesive culture must included the injuries of the past if we hope to move beyond them. Ignoring them because they don't bother "you" will only serve, in the long run, to exacerbate the problem. While I have no answers on how to remedy the rifts in our society and have doubts about an apology, I will say, ignoring them doesn't seem to be working for a large portion of the people in our society and seems to only further resentment.

As to teh slavery part your right, it makes no sense. Its like me saying sorry my grandpa killed your grandpa.As to the shit that took place in the 60's and 70's though, most of those people are still around.I dont think the government owes an apolgy though, more the individuals that perpetuated the crimes.How do you force an individual to appologize? even if you put a gun to his head its not heart felt, that being the case its pointless.

That point is well taken and is what allows us to call each other friends across racial and cultural lines. The perpetrators are, for the most part, gone.What most fail to realize, from the other end of the whip so to speak, is that their (their meant in an overarching societal context) relative affluence is see as being built on the blood of the segregated. Be that through enslavement, apartheid, skeems, swindles, working the system or simply, unfair recognition or lack thereof that is due equal merit. For those who have had to overcome the injustices of history, the past is made present. When the value of the labor was negated by the ethnicity of the laborer and his children suffer because of it, the inequities of the past are made irrefutably incarnate. When worthy people are held back by circumstances they are born into, that are beyond their control, and that are caused by past injurious policies, the breeding ground for just resentment is set, most especially when those policies where drawn up along racial lines.The past is only the past on one side of the coin. To those that are born to disadvantage because of it, it's not that long ago. It's somewhat akin to the child who grows up motherless because someone murdered his mother. He may not suffer tangible injury but what he has missed out on and had to overcome is incalculable. That is the situation many ethnically repressed people the world over feel they are in.So, when it's said, "I didn't do it" that's right and that's why we can be friends but it ignores the obstacles put in place by the policies and prejudices of the past and how those things have cheated todays people out of much of what they may have otherwise been able to have or accomplish. Understand, all be it debatable, not because those old road blocks are in the way now but because they have had to start at a much lower rung on the latter and jump many more hurtles than the should have had to if everything had been equal 'back then'.Any theoretical apology forthcoming would be from "a" society and the government, acting as a representative of society which is it's job, is the only entity capable of offering such an atonement. If an apology was made, which I have my hesitations about for entirely different reasons, it is being made from a society than inarguably profited to a society that inarguably paid. Saying, "all who perpetrated these things are dead" is, I think, an oversimplification. Both societies are still here, one that enjoys the fruits of the past and the other toils under the improvidence of the past.Is all this just sour grapes. Maybe, but those kinds of grapes are what have started countless wars the world over for a very long time. So, it behests us as a society to try and figure out a way to assuage some of the resentment. How we do that, I don't know but I think we should have an open dialogue about it and seek to better understand each other and why each hold the view they do.

Your post adds a new perspective to the discussion for me.
But Do you trust the government?
After the bullshit they have pulled against the NDNs from day one? after the bullshit they have pulled the world over, day after day from then till now?
Could you view it as anything other than a act?
A new idea in controlling and squashing any resistance to the new order.
I trust the fuckers less than I trust my enemies that are known to me and in my daily life, and I dont trust those fuckers at all.
Your post is right about alot of stuff, but I dont think its right about what good an apology would do.

As I said, "(regarding any apology) ...I have my hesitations about for entirely different reasons". Those reasons are just what you mention. Personally I see it as fool hardy to accept an apology from society. It's a little to much like "Kings X" for my taste. But, as I don't come from a people that where enslaved, if that's what they want I don't have a problem with it.I personally would never want an apology, for anything other than stepping on my toe. I've never given one and generally dismiss one when offered. Kinda harsh, but I was raised with the belief that you knew right from wrong when you did it and so any apology is empty. Granny would get over shit but apologizing to her was sure fire way to piss her off. I've, by in large, inherited that from her.

Im with you, aside from bumping into me or some accidental bullshit an apology doesnt mean shit, you knew what you were doing when you did it and im with your granny, telling me your sorry for somethign you did knowing you were doing it is a good way to piss me off.

I'll second Chance's comment. Your post helped us understand the perspective from "the other side of the coin".

Thanks for everyone who participated. I didn't mean to cause a debate. Just wanted to see where everyone stood.

Definitely gives me something to think about. I have some questions regarding what you have said, but I will let my questions develop for a while before I ask.