Posted on 06/20/2009 9:19:09 AM PDT by AJKauf
The Senate unanimously passed a resolution on June 18 that “apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws.”
Sorry, Senate, but you’re not speaking on my behalf. Slavery and Jim Crow were evil, all right, but your resolution is divisive and evasive. It is divisive insofar as it forgets E pluribus unum and suggests that some Americans need to apologize to other Americans, and of course the division is by skin color. It is evasive insofar as it inevitably but wrongly suggests that the problems facing African Americans today are in large measure beyond their control — that they are rooted in history and the still-present effects of that history.
I’ll be accused of just not getting it, and I am afraid that’s true. I do not understand why people who had nothing to do with two shameful institutions can or should apologize to people who may have nothing in common with the victims but skin color. And...
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
The apology du jour....
What in the hell? This is getting nuts. Are they going to DEMAND that the blacks in Africa that hunted down men and women to sell as slaves to the traders APOLOGIZE as well? The ancestors of the blacks who PROFITED from capturing and selling blacks to slave traders? Are they going to demand reparations from them as well?
All the Democrats should. They’re the ones who kept slavery alive followed by Segregation. KKK Byrd should be the first one to stand up and apologize ....
Fractures are forming within the black community over gay marriage. Democrats are very worried.
Not in my name.
Did the Democratic controlled Senate thank the Republicans for abolishing slavery and the Jim Crow laws?
The card Burris.....Find the Queen, Find the Queen.
DISTRACTION, Pay Back, you pick one.
An apology from the people or the generation who had nothing to do with it is pretty hollow—not to mention stupid.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t slavery get here long before America existed? Justa thought, but I was always under the impression that we inherited a pox delivered by someone else and paid dearly to cleanse it...what the hell do we have to apologize for? I think a heartfelt thank you from the slaves and thier heirs is in order...anyone heard one?
We’ll be camping in Gettyburg on the Fourth and training in to DC...I better reread my history books, I guess...was Gettysburg famous for some reason?
Is the Senate bord this week?
Hope Obama spoke up and said I’m sorry...
He is the descendant of slave owners, not the slaves...
Slavery in modern Africa
Slavery in Africa continues today. Slavery existed in Africa before the arrival of Europeans - as did a slave trade that exported millions of sub-Saharan Africans to North Africa, the Middle East, and the Persian Gulf.[1] However, slavery and bondage are still African realities. Hundreds of thousands of Africans still suffer in silence in slave-like situations of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation from which they cannot free themselves.
Modern-day enslavers also exploit lack of political will at the highest levels of some African governments to effectively tackle trafficking and its root causes. Weak interagency co-ordination and low funding levels for ministries tasked with prosecuting traffickers, preventing trafficking and protecting victims also enable traffickers to continue their operations. The transnational criminal nature of trafficking also overwhelms many countries’ law enforcement agencies, which are not equipped to fight organised criminal gangs that operate across national boundaries with impunity.
Slavery by African country
Chad
IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports children being sold to Arab herdsmen in Chad. As part of a new identity imposed on them the herdsman "...change their name, forbid them to speak in their native dialect, ban them from conversing with people from their own ethnic group and make them adopt Islam as their religion."[2]
Mali
The Malian government denies that slavery exists, however, the slavery in Timbuktu is obvious. Slavery still continues with some Tuaregs holding Bella people.[3]
Mauritania
A system exists now by which Arab Muslims -- the bidanes -- own black slaves, the haratines.[4] An estimated 90,000 black Mauritanians remain essentially enslaved to Arab/Berber owners.[5] The ruling bidanes (the name means literally white-skinned people) are descendants of the Sanhaja Berbers and Beni Hassan Arab tribes who emigrated to northwest Africa and present-day Western Sahara and Mauritania during the Middle Ages.[6] According to some estimates, up to 600,000 black Mauritanians, or 20% of the population, are still enslaved, many of them used as bonded labour.[7] Slavery in Mauritania was finally criminalized in August 2007.[8] Malouma Messoud, a former Muslim slave has explained her enslavement to a religious leader:
"We didn't learn this history in school; we simply grew up within this social hierarchy and lived it. Slaves believe that if they do not obey their masters, they will not go to paradise. They are raised in a social and religious system that everyday reinforces this idea.[9]"
In Mauritania, despite slave ownership having been banned by law in 1981, hereditary slavery continues.[10] Moreover, according to Amnesty International:
"Not only has the government denied the existence of slavery and failed to respond to cases brought to its attention, it has hampered the activities of organisations which are working on the issue, including by refusing to grant them official recognition".[11]
Imam El Hassan Ould Benyamin of Tayarat in 1997 expressed his views about earlier proclamations ending slavery in his country as follows:
"[it] is contrary to the teachings of the fundamental text of Islamic law, the Quran ... [and] amounts to the expropriation from muslims of their goods; goods that were acquired legally. The state, if it is Islamic, does not have the right to seize my house, my wife or my slave."[12]
Niger
In Niger, where the practice of slavery was outlawed in 2003, a study found that almost 8% of the population are still slaves.[13] Slavery dates back for centuries in Niger and was finally criminalised in 2003, after five years of lobbying by Anti-Slavery International and Nigerian human-rights group, Timidria.[14] More than 870,000 people still live in conditions of forced labour, according to Timidria, a local human rights group.[15][16]
Descent-based slavery, where generations of the same family are born into bondage, is traditionally practised by at least four of Niger’s eight ethnic groups. The slave masters are mostly from the nomadic tribes — the Tuareg, Fulani, Toubou and Arabs.[17] It is especially rife among the warlike Tuareg, in the wild deserts of north and west Niger, who roam near the borders with Mali and Algeria.[18] In the region of Say on the right bank of the river Niger, it is estimated that three-quarters of the population around 1904-1905 was composed of slaves.[19]
Historically, the Tuareg swelled the ranks of their slaves during war raids into other peoples’ lands. War was then the main source of supply of slaves, although many were bought at slave markets, run mostly by indigenous peoples.[20][21]
Sudan
Francis Bok, former Sudanese slave. At the age of seven, he was captured during a raid in Southern Sudan, and enslaved for ten years.(Courtesy Unitarian Universalist Association/Jeanette Leardi)
There has been a recrudescence of jihad slavery since 1983 in the Sudan.[23][24]
Slavery in the Sudan predates Islam, but continued under Islamic rulers and has never completely died out in Sudan. In the Sudan, Christian and animist captives in the civil war are often enslaved, and female prisoners are often used sexually, with their Muslim captors claiming that Islamic law grants them permission.[25] According to CBS news, slaves have been sold for $50 apiece. [1] In 2001 CNN reported the Bush administration was under pressure from Congress, including conservative Christians concerned about religious oppression and slavery, to address issues involved in the Sudanese conflict.[26] CNN has also quoted the U.S. State Department's allegations: "The [Sudanese] government's support of slavery and its continued military action which has resulted in numerous deaths are due in part to the victims' religious beliefs." [2]
Jok Madut Jok, professor of History at Loyola Marymount University, states that the abduction of women and children of the south by north is slavery by any definition. The government of Sudan insists that the whole matter is no more than the traditional tribal feuding over resources.[27]
It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the Second Sudanese Civil War. The slaves are mostly Dinka people.[28][29]
Child slave trade
The trading of children has been reported in modern Nigeria and Benin.[30] The children are kidnapped or purchased for $20 - $70 each by slavers in poorer states, such as Benin and Togo, and sold into slavery in sex dens or as unpaid domestic servants for $350.00 each in wealthier oil-rich states, such as Nigeria and Gabon.[31] [32]
Ghana, Togo, Benin
In parts of Ghana, a family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female to serve as a sex slave within the offended family.[33] In this instance, the woman does not gain the title of "wife". In parts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin, shrine slavery persists, despite being illegal in Ghana since 1998. In this system of slavery, sometimes called trokosi (in Ghana) or voodoosi in Togo and Benin, or ritual servitude, young virgin girls are given as slaves in traditional shrines and are used sexually by the priests in addition to providing free labor for the shrine.[34]
Ethiopia
Mahider Bitew, Children's Rights and Protection expert at the Ministry of Women's Affairs, says that some isolated studies conducted in Dire Dawa, Shashemene, Awassa and three other towns of the country indicate that the problem of child trafficking is very serious. According to a 2003 study about one thousand children were trafficked via Dire Dawa to countries of the Middle East. The majority of those children were girls, most of whom were forced to be sex workers after leaving the country. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has identified prostitution as the Worst Form of Child Labor.[35]
In Ethiopia, children are trafficked into prostitution, to provide cheap or unpaid labor and to work as domestic servants or beggars. The ages of these children are usually between 10 and 18 and their trafficking is from the country to urban centers and from cities to the country. Boys are often expected to work in activities such as herding cattle in rural areas and in the weaving industry in Addis Ababa, and other major towns. Girls are expected to take responsibilities for domestic chores, childcare and looking after the sick and to work as prostitutes.[35]
The first slaves arrived here in 1619 from the islands...
getting ready to hand out the 2009 version of 40 acres and a mule -— .4 acres and a government motors pickup
Also, exactly who was responsible for those Jim Crow laws, which were finally overthrown at the time of Martin Luther King?
Every one of the politicians and leaders responsible for passing and enforcing those Jim Crow laws was a DEMOCRAT.
Do we ever hear anyone admitting to that? Do we hear Senator Byrd apologizing for his own part in this racist oppression? I think not.
Instead, there’s some vague sense that Republicans are the racists. I wonder why? Could malfeasance by the historians and the media, totally controlled by the left, have anything to do with it?
My ancestors had NOTHING to do with slavery or Jim Crow. But curiously enough, Obama’s ancestors on BOTH SIDES did. On his white side, they owned slaves. On his Muslim African side, they engaged in the slave trade.
How about an apology, Obama? Your ancestors had more to do with creating this injustice than most of ours.
kenyans selling kenyans to muslim slave traders:
http://www.jambokenya.com/jambo/kenya/history5.htm
If they were really sincere, every democrat would have to resign.
Prelude to Reparations. Book it.
I thought 600,000 deaths in the Civil War covered any apologies that one nation had to make!
Exactly - it’s a proclamation ... like “take your cat to work day.”
They are not speaking for me, either.
However, if they wish to apologize to the pre-Rev war German emigrants who indentured themselves to come to America, then worked like slaves for 7 years to pay off their passage- then to join Washington’s army to fight the English and make this an independent country....and losing everything they owned during that time and having to start over again
then, I’m listening
I ain’t NEVER gonna apologize for Jim Beam.
Jim what?
Never mind.
Because once you have apologized, you admit guilt.
Once you admit guilt, you are obligated to pay restitution to the injured party.
See where this is going?
It’s worse than that, the Arabs, i.e., muzzies, were slave traders. Yet blacks flock to the black islam movement in this country.
I believe that islamic societies are the only slave societies today ... if you don’t count the people of North Korea and the like.
It is simply the first step toward reparations to the blacks.
Very like opening Pandora’s box.
NO! NO! NO! ...
No the Rats run Congress — makes sense they should apologize if anybody’s going to.
My ancestors fought for the side that won.
[That's the North — for you people in Rio Linda]
...it makes everyone feel good and the sheeple think they are really doing something
The Senate Apologizes,looks like Obama is rubbing off on the senate.Why apologize when the salves were freed didn’t the feds give them two mules and five acres of land FREE?
Which means that a generation from now, 7 out of 10 African American adults will be people who grew up fatherless.
There is simply no way that the economic disparity and general dysfunction of black America is going to change without a major shift in these things, which can only be done by black Americans. No amount of apologizing, white guilt, "reparations," or welfare payments is ever going to fix it.
Here's how we do this. Say, "Thanks for the apology, Whitey, and for the governmental assistance. Now we're gonna do our dead-level best to take it from here."
Toss the hip hop cds into the dumpster.
Stop screwing around outside of a long term commitment. That long term commitment is called "marriage." Become dedicated to being a father.
If you're female, don't let anyone between your legs who's not married to you. If he wants to get in bed with you, tell him the way to get there is a public and legal marriage ceremony. If you can't find a decent black guy to marry, find a decent white, hispanic or oriental guy. I mean it. It's time to be done with this crap of bringing babies into the world destined to grow up without a father.
Stay away from substance abuse, including alcohol. If it's illegal or hurts someone else, don't do it. Get a job. Commit to one woman for life. And take your kids to church. And play baseball with them and help them grow up to be kind, productive, respectful members of society who will create good lives for themselves and also contribute to the lives of others.
That's not being an "oreo," by the way. Don't believe the morons who try to tell you it is.
It's called manning up and being a man.
I guess I need a thank you as my great grandfather gave several years of his life serving in the Union Army to end slavery (181 st Ohio Volunteers...fought with Grant in the Wilderness campaign).
What a crock of $hit! Keep it up..... There is a tipping point somewhere.
My ancestors fought for the side that won.
[That’s the North — for you people in Rio Linda]
I dont think EITHER side “won” in that war...
CNBC had interview , saying the healthcare, education- reform was part of reparations !
“I dont think EITHER side “won” in that war...”
That’s what people still arguing on both sides just can’t seem to figure out.
The Price in Blood!
Casualties in the Civil War
At least 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and some experts say the toll reached 700,000. The number that is most often quoted is 620,000. At any rate, these casualties exceed the nation’s loss in all its other wars, from the Revolution through Vietnam.
The Union armies had from 2,500,000 to 2,750,000 men. Their losses, by the best estimates:
Battle deaths: 110,070
Disease, etc.: 250,152
Total 360,222
The Confederate strength, known less accurately because of missing records, was from 750,000 to 1,250,000. Its estimated losses:
Battle deaths: 94,000
Disease, etc.: 164,000
Total 258,000
The leading authority on casualties of the war, Thomas L. Livermore, admitting the handicap of poor records in some cases, studied 48 of the war’s battles and concluded:
Of every 1,000 Federals in battle, 112 were wounded.
Of every 1,000 Confederates, 150 were hit.
One authority reports that Of 3,530 Indians who fought for the Union, 1,018 were killed, a phenomenally high rate.
Of 178,975 Negro Union troops, this expert says, over 36,000 died.
Mortality was greater among Confederate wounded, because of inferior medical service. The great battles, in terms of their toll in dead, wounded, and missing is listed on this site:
The Ten Costliest Battles of the Civil War.
Some of the great blood baths of the war came as Grant drove on Richmond in the spring of 1864- Confederate casualties are missing for this campaign, but were enormous. The Federal toll:
The Wilderness, May 5-7: 17,666
Spotsylvania, May 10 and 12: 10,920
Drewry’s Bluff, May 12-16 4,160
Cold Harbor, June 1-3: 12,000
Petersburg, June 15-30 16,569
These total 61,315, with rolls of the missing incomplete.
The Appomattox campaign, about ten days of running battles ending April 9, 1865, cost the Union about 11,000 casualties, and ended in the surrender of Lee’s remnant of 26,765. Confederate dead and wounded in the meantime were about 6,500.
Lesser battles are famous for their casualties. At Franklin, Tennessee, November 30, 1864, General Hood’s Confederates lost over 6,000 of 21,000 effectives -most of them in about two hours. Six Confederate generals died there.
Hood lost about 8,ooo men in his assault before Atlanta, July 22, 1864; Sherman’s Union forces lost about 3,800.
The small battle of Wilson’s Creek, Missouri, August 10, 1861, was typical of the savagery of much of the war’s fighting. The Union force Of 5,400 men lost over 1,200; the Confederates, over 11,000 strong, lost about the same number.
The first battle of Manassas/Bull Run, though famous as the first large engagement, was relatively light in cost: 2,708 for the Union, 1,981 for the Confederates.
The casualty rolls struck home to families and regiments.
The Confederate General, John B. Gordon, cited the case of the Christian family, of Christiansburg, Virginia, which suffered eighteen dead in the war.
The 1st Maine Heavy Artillery, in a charge at Petersburg, Virginia, 18 June, 1864, sustained a “record” loss of the war-635 of its 9oo men within seven minutes.
Another challenger is the 26th North Carolina, which lost 714, of its 800 men at Gettysburg-in numbers and percentage the war’s greatest losses. On the first day this regiment lost 584 dead and wounded, and when roll was called the next morning for G Company, one man answered, and he had been knocked unconscious by a shell burst the day before. This roll was called by a sergeant who lay on a stretcher with a severe leg wound.
The 24th Michigan, a gallant Federal regiment which was in front of the North Carolinians on the first day, lost 362 of its 496 men.
More than 3,000 horses were killed at Gettysburg, and one artillery battalion, the 9th Massachusetts, lost 80 of its 88 animals in the Trostle farmyard.
A brigade from Vermont lost 1,645 Of its 2,100 men during a week of fighting in the Wilderness.
The Irish Brigade, Union, had a total muster Of 7,000 during the war, and returned to New York in ‘65 with 1,000. One company was down to seven men. The 69th New York of this brigade lost 16 of 19 officers, and had 75 per cent casualties among enlisted men.
In the Irish Brigade, Confederate, from Louisiana, Company A dwindled from 90 men to 3 men and an officer in March, ‘65. Company B went from 100 men to 2.
Experts have pointed out that the famed Light Brigade at Balaklava lost only 36.7 per cent of its men, and that at least 63 Union regiments lost as much as 50 per cent in single battles. At Gettysburg 23 Federal regiments suffered losses of more than half their strength, including the well-known Iron Brigade (886 of 1,538 engaged).
Many terrible casualty tolls were incurred in single engagements, like that of the Polish Regiment of Louisiana at Frayser’s Farm during the Seven Days, where the outfit was cut to pieces and had to be consolidated with the 20th Louisiana. In this action one company of the Poles lost 33 of 42 men.
They don’t speak for me. I’ve never owned a slave.
Sen. Thomas Harkin [D-IA]hide cosponsors
Cosponsors [as of 2009-06-19]
Sen. Mark Pryor [D-AR]
Sen. John Kerry [D-MA]
Sen. Edward Kennedy [D-MA]
Sen. Dianne Feinstein [D-CA]
Sen. Blanche Lincoln [D-AR]
Sen. Bill Nelson [D-FL]
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI]
Sen. Barbara Boxer [D-CA]
Sen. Roland Burris [D-IL]
Sen. John Reed [D-RI]
Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL]
Sen. Carl Levin [D-MI]
Sen. Mark Udall [D-CO]
Sen. Mary Landrieu [D-LA]
Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]
Sen. Evan Bayh [D-IN]
Sen. Barbara Mikulski [D-MD]
Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-VT]
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY]
Sen. Michael Bennet [D-CO]
Sen. Robert Casey [D-PA]
Sen. Charles Schumer [D-NY]
Sen. Mark Warner [D-VA]
Sen. Ben Nelson [D-NE]
Sen. Arlen Specter [D-PA]
Sen. Robert Menéndez [D-NJ]
Sen. Debbie Ann Stabenow [D-MI]
Sen. Mark Begich [D-AK]
Sen. Tom Udall [D-NM]
Sen. Jeff Bingaman [D-NM]
Sen. Samuel Brownback [R-KS]
Sen. Bob Corker [R-TN]
Sen. Christopher Dodd [D-CT]
Sen. Claire McCaskill [D-MO]
Sen. Thad Cochran [R-MS]
Sen. Bernard Sanders [I-VT]
Sen. Sherrod Brown [D-OH]
Sen. Thomas Carper [D-DE]
Sen. Christopher Bond [R-MO]
Sen. Patty Murray [D-WA]
Sen. Frank Lautenberg [D-NJ]
Sen. Benjamin Cardin [D-MD]
Sen. Russell Feingold [D-WI]
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=sc111-26
and their floor speeches:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=111-s20090618-20
It never ceases to amaze me how insecure the Democratic party is about its racist past (and present).
By keeping nlacks perpetually dependent on government programs and insulting them and squashing their motivation to work hard with so-called affirmative action, the Democrat party continues enslavement of nlacks in all but name. Liberal politicians couch their attempts to turn America into their socialist wet-dream in the sugary guise of “helping nlacks,” just so they can label their opponents “racist,” thereby seducing nlacks to vote for them out of unwarranted fear of conservatives and unwarranted trust of liberals. Liberals encourage white people to feel guilty and insecure about the issue of race, then use sense of guilt and insecurity to abuse them.
No wonder they’re touchy about race. They’ve hoisted their party on the backs of minorities.
We all lost. This war brought about the massive Federal government that is suffocating us all.
The 26th North Carolina lost 714 of its 800 men at Gettysburg - in numbers and percentage the war’s greatest losses. On the first day this regiment lost 584 dead and wounded, and when roll was called the next morning for G Company, one man answered. He had been knocked unconscious by a shell burst the day before. This roll was called by a sergeant who lay on a stretcher with a severe leg wound.
Reparations my Azz. How about getting off their azzes and getting a job? I am at whit’s end with this crap. When is this going to end?
I think my “b” and “n” keys are conspiring against me.
“I thought 600,000 deaths in the Civil War covered any apologies that one nation had to make!”
Some lost FAR more than others;
The Irish Brigade, Union, had a total muster Of 7,000 during the war, and returned to New York in ‘65 with 1,000. One company was down to seven men. The 69th New York of this brigade lost 16 of 19 officers, and had 75 per cent casualties among enlisted men.
Of 178,975 Negro Union troops, this expert says, over 36,000 died.
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