Nothing in this resolution authorizes or supports any claim against the United States or serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States.
Nothing in this resolution authorizes or supports any claim against the United States or serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States.
So concludes the Senate Resolution that was unanimously passed this past week, the one that purports to apologize to African-Americans for slavery.
A similar resolution passed the House of Representatives earlier, but it does not contain that concluding sentence, which is where the debate will center as the House and Senate go to conference.
The Senate language is expressly designed to blunt any calls for reparations for African-Americans, a hot topic in some areas.
I don’t know where you stand on reparations, but I’m willing to forgo them and just have my taxes cut and shift some of the money spent on the military-industrial-corrections complex on good schools and health insurance. But some people, including Randall Robinson, have made the case that not only are reparations warranted, but necessary to turn the corner in this country.
For that purpose, the Senate Resolution is a remarkable document, containing a prima facie case for the wrongs this nation visited upon African-Americans over the past 400 years.
I found it curious that the U.S. Senate, that body whose very existence upholds the notion that the wealthy should have a say in the running of this country, would offer up such a resolution.
But 100 senators voted for this resolution, four years after the Senate apologized for the nation’s history of lynching.
As apologies go, this one is full of all the nice, flowery words. All the “whereas” are in place, and it dutifully notes “the system of de jure racial discrimination known as ‘Jim Crow,’ which arose in certain parts of the United States after the Civil War to create separate and unequal societies for Whites and African-Americans, was a direct result of the racism against people of African descent that was engendered by slavery.”
It recounts a short history of slavery, mentioning all of the more heinous parts of the foul practice, stating “Africans forced into slavery were brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized and subjected to the indignity of being stripped of their names and heritage.”
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