[SynthethicalY]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...avery-apology/


MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Gov. Bob Riley signed a resolution Thursday expressing "profound regret" for Alabama's role in slavery and apologizing for slavery's wrongs and lingering effects.

"Slavery was evil and is a part of American history," the Republican governor said. "I believe all Alabamians are proud of the tremendous progress we have made and continue to make."

Alabama is the fourth Southern state to pass a slavery apology, following votes by the legislatures in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Alabama's Democrat-controlled Legislature approved the resolution last week.

The signing occurred in the state Capitol, which also served as the first capitol of the Confederacy in 1861. The Capitol was also the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march that led to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The resolution describes "centuries of brutal dehumanization and injustices" and says "the vestiges of slavery are ever before African-American citizens."

It also says the House and Senate "express our profound regret for the State of Alabama's role in slavery and that we apologize for the wrongs inflicted by slavery and its after effects in the United States of America."

Riley said he said he signed the resolution partly because it offered an opportunity to present a new image for his state.

"Alabama's a different state today and we should be proud of it," Riley said.

When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led the voting rights march in 1965, Alabama's Legislature was all white. Now it is one-fourth black.

"This proves Alabama is open for everyone and we are ready to improve race relations," said state Rep. Mary Moore, a Birmingham Democrat who sponsored the resolution. "The issue of slavery and its impact on the country had been kept in the closet until a few Southern states said, 'We want to take it out of the closet.'"

[!@#$%!]

fuck, it was about time...

[SynthethicalY]

Yeah, hope other states follow. Tht have not released a formal apologies yet.

[fishmonkey]

i want to apologise for killing my older brothers goldfish.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by swa(y)

what a fucking joke...a day late and a dollar short.

theres not one person alive today that was a slave....nor is there anyone whos parents were slaves.

what do they theink they are doing? making something "right"?

there are a lot of people (believe it or not) that one way or another still suffer from the consequences of slavery. i know this may seem like a stupid empty gesture, but for a state to recognize its fuckups, no matter how late, it helps prevent future wrongs, it opens the door to making amends (such as paying reparations), and it clarifies what is right and wrong in the state for future wannabe politicians with ideas of aryan supremacy and shit like that. oh yes, those people exist, ridiculous as it sounds. slavery may have ended with the civil war, but alabama continued to be ran by bigots during the XX century.

[mangajunky]

I want to go out on a limb here and say that evil is really bad and should be avoided. We're sorry if we've ever done anything evil.

I do not endorse evil behavior. Do you think this is too controversial? Do you think most people will back me up on this one?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by mangajunky

I want to go out on a limb here and say that evil is really bad and should be avoided. We're sorry if we've ever done anything evil.

I do not endorse evil behavior. Do you think this is too controversial? Do you think most people will back me up on this one?

why is it always white people who dismiss any progress in racial justice as generic and irrelevant or part of some larger fuzzy thing? no sir, it's not. it matters to those of us who are beige & darker. i'm not saying ALL white people think this way, but it's usually white males who minimize these issues-- women know what's it like to be discriminated against & usually are more reasonable.

ps- sure "evil is evil" but how are you going to recognize it with such a vague description?

[pantophobia]

i think this is a big step, i mean as !@#$%! said the early twentieth century was not kind to African-Americans, and the fact it was Alabama says a lot

Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama were the center of of it all, and i mean it all, through the 50s and 60s the defining moments of the civil rights movement occurred in those 2 cities including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Birmingham......dear fuck, let's just say it earned the nickname "Bombingham", and in 1963 alone MLK Jr was arrested for a non-violent protest, the police turned fire-hoses and police dogs on school children, and most horribly the 16th St. Baptist church bombings by the KKK that killed 4 little black girls 14 years old and younger

this is very humbling of the Alabama Legislature to deal with their ignorance that goes back as far as Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis, but as recent as George Wallace and Bull Connor

[mangajunky]

I'm more along the lines that this is pandering and isn't a significant step. If they want to impress me, they'll do something that actually effects the community and not pass a resolution that is basically someone patting people on the shoulder and saying "there there".

How about election reform? That's a far more pressing issue. No one should have to wait on line for hours to vote. And then vote on an electronic machine that can be hacked.

I feel that this isn't a politician taking a real step. I'd like to see something more substantial.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by mangajunky

I'm more along the lines that this is pandering and isn't a significant step. If they want to impress me, they'll do something that actually effects the community and not pass a resolution that is basically someone patting people on the shoulder and saying "there there".

How about election reform? That's a far more pressing issue. No one should have to wait on line for hours to vote. And then vote on an electronic machine that can be hacked.

I feel that this isn't a politician taking a real step. I'd like to see something more substantial.

election reform-- then why not date rape? or wait, wait.. genetically modified crops! yes... or let's talk about generic presrciption drugs.

yes it could be a number of things but an apology for slavery has an impact on the consequences of slavery. in law you always have a precedent. this official apology opens the door to further actions that will have an impact in the future. the evils of slavery have a repercussion today-- in education, in social services, in policy & politics, in criminal justice, and yes in electoral politics too. acknowledging the past lets you see these problems today.

again, this is a non-issue to you, but it doesn't mean it's not a real issue.

[pantophobia]

pandering maybe

but lets put it this way

has the United States ever officially come out and apologize for losing the Vietnam War?

acknowledging it is a step, even if it sometimes is a small one

the nation as a whole rarely apologizes for anything, it takes serious humbling for a country to have perspective

[mangajunky]

Originally Posted by pantophobia

pandering maybe

but lets put it this way

has the United States ever officially come out and apologize for losing the Vietnam War?

acknowledging it is a step, even if it sometimes is a small one

the nation as a whole rarely apologizes for anything, it takes serious humbling for a country to have perspective

agreed

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by mangajunky

agreed

yes. don't underestimate the value of good mental health at the national level. the u.s. government operates very much like an alcoholic family-- just look at the lies for that iraq war.

[mangajunky]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

yes it could be a number of things but an apology for slavery has an impact on the consequences of slavery. in law you always have a precedent. this official apology opens the door to further actions that will have an impact in the future. the evils of slavery have a repercussion today-- in education, in social services, in policy & politics, in criminal justice, and yes in electoral politics too. acknowledging the past lets you see these problems today.

again, this is a non-issue to you, but it doesn't mean it's not a real issue.

understood, but I don't think it's a non-issue - - - I just felt that the politician is just trying to get points without actually doing anything.

I understand now that it IS an important issue that could lead to better things.

excuse the double post.

[!@#$%!]

it is an issue-- as a beige person bound to have brown children, it means something to me, you understand? i am not a the descendent of slaves and if i am they are mixed in my gene pool, but culturally i'm not. still i have to face stupid racism and bigotry every day-- things that may be invisible to you. my wife is one of the few survivors of the native american genocide-- let me ask her when she comes home if gestures of this sort mean anything to her-- i know her well and i'm sure her answer is going to be yes. go and ask some brown people around-- sure a lot are going to say it's not good enough, but few are going to say it's the same as nothing. it's not the same as nothing. it means something. it does. the reason you can't see it is because it doesn't speak to you.

[floatingslowly]

I'm going to agree with swa(y) on this one....seems too little too late. start actually getting around to giving out 40 acres and a mule and I might be more impressed.

actions speak louder than words. saying "sorry" this late in the game is somewhat of a joke. am I supposed to believe that it was done with conviction?

if they felt so strongly about it, maybe it should have been said several generations earlier.

then again, I'm an unforgiving bastard and honestly have no stake in this at all.....so what does it matter what I think?

THE INTERNET: GIVING IDIOTS LIKE MYSELF A VOICE SINCE 1983

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by swa(y)

it does effect people.....but in ways that are stupid. i, swa(y), nor anyone i know ever did anything wrong. i dont even know if my ancestors had slaves or not...and when ya think about how many people moved to the united states AFTER slavery...i just see it as a pointless gesture.

i also see it as a gesture that incourages, even if its at a small scale, people to remain angry at something they, nor anyone they personnally know, experienced.

im not being racist when i state this, im being honest...there are still towns here in the south (and it is rare) where people still feel as if they are "owed" something. owed what? acres they were once promised? money? i have no idea. id be willing to bet they feel this way though because they have been raised to feel this way...from generation to generation..traditional anger...its sad, and its fucked up.

and there are indeed a small handful of people out there (when looking at the big picture, it is small), some white folks, that wish slavery was still in existance.

i grew up in a town with a lot of the first, and a small amount of the latter, mentioned groups of people.

i dont live in AL, but i live close enough. such an apology has the potential to seriously invoke anger on both ends of the spectrum.

no one will ever get an apology out of me for something im not responsible for. and AL? what the fuck is that???? just the name of a piece of land...thats all. it might as well be georgia, tennessee, wherever.


i do understand where yr coming from, but i just have to dissagree with ya on that one.

yeah but you see, the apology wasn't directed at you-- a white male--- that's my very point. it's meaningless to you because it's not for you and you lack the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. if you could, you would understand.

and yeah i think the past shouldn't be forgotten, and more importantly its consequences in the present shouldn't be forgotten. so yes people are owed something because something was taken away from them.

i support paying reparations to the descendants of slaves just like i support paying reparations to holocaust survivors. of course not everybody is going to agree with me, i don't expect that. but a lot of the wealth of this country was built on the back of slaves and they never saw a dime of it. payback would be simply a return on their involuntary investment.

also: georgia, tennessee etc are not "pieces of land", they are states, i.e., they are political entities vested with power; "they" are able to enter contracts, make laws, raise funds, tax their people, jail people, organize militias, etc. they are also able to apologize for their fuckups. i know this sounds to you like a work of fiction, but it is these legal fictions that allow us to live in large, non-tribal societies.

[terminal pharmacy]

we have a prime minister who refuses to appologise for the genecide of indiginous australiains during colonisation when the whole race was nearly wiped out. nearly every single australian wants this apology

[terminal pharmacy]

Originally Posted by swa(y)

i say all the aussies were given a pretty decent deal when ya consider how that country was started.

-course im only kiddin'.

you mean the convicts or the mass genocide

[val-holla-ing]

since slavery has only been highlighted in an at least partial manner in schools in the last 30 or so years (in the south, specifically), this IS a big step for alabama to apologize. i only hope that it's not a show and dance and that things for people of color in the south start getting a bit better.