Africans Have Apologized for Slavery, So Why Won’t the US?

[mota bhai 2,675]

Africans Have Apologized for Slavery, So Why Won’t the US?
A majority of Americans do not support reparations, or even an apology, for the centuries of brutal enslavement endured by blacks.

BY: THEODORE R. JOHNSON III
Posted: June 17 2014

Five years ago I stood in a slave castle on Senegal’s Gorée Island at the infamous Door of No Return. Our guide told us that once Africans walked through this doorway, which opened right into the Atlantic Ocean, they were gone forever. During the slave trade, shackled blacks were led out the door and forced onto ships that waited on the other side. If a slave tried to turn back, he could be shot and fed to the sharks that loitered nearby.

After the group had moved on, I lingered a few minutes and wondered if any of my ancestors walked through this door on the way to a life of brutal enslavement. Just then, a Senegalese man walked up to me and asked if I was American. When I told him I was, he put his hand on my shoulder and, with his voice cracking with emotion, said, “I’m sorry, brother.”

...

The United States has never given an unconditional apology for slavery.

...

It’s a little absurd that I had to travel across the Atlantic Ocean to West Africa to hear the words “Sorry, brother.”

...

Many West African nations and tribes have issued apologies for their role in the transatlantic slave trade to black Americans, and even to specific African-American individuals who have traced their ancestry to certain locales and who would otherwise have never received an apology.

In 1999 the president of Benin, a neighbor of Nigeria, apologized for his nation’s role in slavery. In 2006 Ghana apologized to American descendants of slaves. A few months ago a Cameroonian chieftain apologized to an African American who’d traced his lineage to a couple of local clans. Other West African tribal leaders have done the same.

The reason for these apologies is the role that some West African tribes and clans played in trading away people from neighboring tribes that they’d captured in war or kidnapped. Though this may appear to have been Africans selling Africans into slavery, it was not that simple. As many scholars have noted, calling all participants “African” presumes a unified identity among captors and captives that did not exist during the transatlantic slave trade. Different tribes saw themselves as completely distinct and held no inherent loyalties to one another.

...

However, many West African nations now feel compassion and a sense of responsibility for the descendants of those taken from African soil.

They recognize the atrocity and the complicity of some of their ancestors in allowing it to occur. And so they have apologized—without condition.

The United States, on the other hand, has not. Though it has formally apologized for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II ... the nation has not mustered the will to do the same for slavery.

And it’s not just the government. In a recent Huffington Post/YouGov poll, only 28 percent of Americans thought that slavery warranted an apology, while 54 percent thought the country should not apologize ... This is a significant declaration and communicates to black Americans what the nation thinks of their story.

Theodore R. Johnson III is a writer, naval officer and former White House fellow. His writing focuses on race, society and politics. Follow him on Twitter.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2014/06/why_won_t_the_united_states_apologize_for_slavery.html?wpisrc=topstories

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

Don't know where you get the idea that west africans are sorry about slavery. There is still a huge separation between free born and slave born inside these countries. Just some fool writing about something they have no real knowlege of

[JohnR! 5,495]

Perhaps the USA should apologize on behalf of the defeated Confederate States...

[mota bhai 2,675]

Perhaps the USA should apologize on behalf of the defeated Confederate States...

Are you making the claim that there was no slave ownership in the states that did not secede into the Confederacy?

Don't know where you get the idea that west africans are sorry about slavery. There is still a huge separation between free born and slave born inside these countries. Just some fool writing about something they have no real knowlege of

The author has made specific references to apologies by officials in West Africa. Are you here to tell us any of those specific references in the article are factually incorrect?

[JohnR! 5,495]

Are you making the claim that there was no slave ownership in the states that did not secede into the Confederacy?

No, I'm not. Are you?

[mota bhai 2,675]

No, I'm not.

Then I'm not sure I understand why you believe the apology should be on behalf of the states that seceded into the Confederacy and not every state.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Glad you can post this. I read it yesterday and thought about it, but I knew if I posted this, I'd be called out for race baiting.

[GandD 5,966]

Glad you can post this. I read it yesterday and thought about it, but I knew if I posted this, I'd be called out for race baiting.

Dear Marvin, my ancestor's owned slaves. Sorry man. But i'm still not giving you any money. Feel better?

Edited June 18, 2014 by GandD

[Teddy B 17,251]

Is an apology from the people that weren't directly involved in slavery all that meaningful in the first place?

[GandD 5,966]

Is an apology from the people that weren't directly involved in slavery all that meaningful in the first place?

The US apologized to Japanese-US citizens they put in interment camps during WW2. That was appropriate and this would be too IMO. Its not like everyone would have to sign an apology. Just an official US government apology.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think apologies are only meaningful if the events happened within living memory. Then it should come with some sort of reparation - not necessarily just giving people money.

[JohnR! 5,495]

Then I'm not sure I understand why you believe the apology should be on behalf of the states that seceded into the Confederacy and not every state.

Not every state/territory had slaves, so it would be unfair to include them.

Ultimately the Union did the right thing, but only after the Civil War, at the center of which was the issue of ending slavery in the entire country, as it existed at the time.

[mota bhai 2,675]

Glad you can post this. I read it yesterday and thought about it, but I knew if I posted this, I'd be called out for race baiting.

Well, I don't believe there should be an apology. So I'm clearly not race baiting, I'm being fair and balanced.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Dear Marvin, my ancestor's owned slaves. Sorry man. But i'm still not giving you any money. Feel better?

Is an apology from the people that weren't directly involved in slavery all that meaningful in the first place?

From you, I'll take a pepsi and a hamburger. We'll call it even.

[mota bhai 2,675]

Not every state/territory had slaves, so it would be unfair to include them.

Perhaps we should let our states issue individual apologies, then.