There are some valid points in this piece on apologies for slavery -- but it still does not overcome my objection to making such apologies for the actions of those long-dead.

While I applaud the efforts of Texas State Sen. Rodney Ellis and State Rep. Senfronia Thompson to pass a resolution of formal apology for slavery, their proposal does not go far enough. It may be a necessary first step, but Texas and Virginia, and the other slaveholding states, have much more to apologize for than just the institution of slavery, hideous though it was.

Particularly during the post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow periods, African-Americans in the South were treated with extraordinary brutality and cruelty, from the second-class citizenship status formalized in segregation to the epidemic of lynching that swept across the South and up into the Midwest as far north as Duluth, Minn., between about 1880 and 1930. Almost 500 documented lynchings took place in Texas alone, a greater number than in any other state except Georgia and Mississippi.

These lynchings included some of the most atrocious of the so-called "spectacle lynchings," a species of mass entertainment that probably began on Feb. 1, 1893, in Paris, Texas, with the prolonged torture/murder with hot irons and a bonfire of Henry Smith, a retarded black man, before a cheering mob of 10,000 spectators. In addition to the violence directed at individuals, there were also periodic "race riots," which usually meant pogroms directed at blacks. In 1886, all blacks were completely driven out of Comanche County by vigilantes. My father, who grew up in Comanche County in the 1920s, remembers stories of signs posted on the edge of town that read, "Nigger, don't let the sun set on you here."

Those who committed these evils are, by and large, long dead. So are their victims and those with living memory of them. And while we must not forget them, we must not apologize for these events either, for such apologies constitute an admission of our moral culpability for them -- something this generation does not have.

And in a state like Texas, where Republicans today dominate, such an apology is inappropriate -- for slavery and Jim Crow were institutions supported by the Democrats, while the GOP actively opposed them. Let the Democratic party apologize for its role in institutionalizing and supporting these practices, both by its policies and its active support of the Klan.

And if any apology, acknowldgement, or condemnation does come from state government, make sure that the role of that malignant political entity is acknowledged prominently in the text, along with Republican efforts to stop and oppose them. After all, that is history as well -- a history that some would rather hide.

And personally, I think this approach -- dealing with today's issues -- is much more important. Human trafficking goes on today, and must be stopped with the full resources of every level of government.

Posted by: Greg at 10:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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