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Lordhat wrote:While we're at it, I'd like to apologize for Pompeii, and Atlantis!

Atlantis was clearly caused by Global Warming. You know, that thing that is being caused by Humans and their Cars (even though Volcanoes have been pumping out more than humans since the dawn of time, but what the hell lets blame cars)

eh? Cars in atlantis?

Anyway, people should apologize for thier wrongs. Not the wrongs of thier ancestors. But they should definitley make it clear they don't agree with thier actions.

Apology? Mabye not, but reparations yes. Most definitely. The question is how? I would try to close the gap between the minority and give them a decent shot at education.

However then you would have the problem "why are all the poor BLACK people getting help, aand not all the poor WHITE people?"

Orkeosaurus is making some really good points here people.

I'm sort of fascinated by the folks who think it really is a good idea to do a reparations program based soley off of skin color and history.

I've always been in the camp where we learn from history: not live in it.

(I know racism is not 'history.' There are still racist people. Slavery[primary grounds for reparations] IS history.)

edit: in America.

Actually slavery is still a big part of the world. Many slaves may not be in chains but when I was in dubai there were tons of philipino maids. Thier 'masters' had thier passport hostage so they couldn't leave. And the pay was crap. REAL crap.
We knew one as a friend, she was hit by a car. They would have left her to rot her masters, we paid her hospital bill, and got her on her way home. The masters didn't want anything to do with her or her welfare.

Ah yes. Thanks for keeping me honest Faithful.

But as it pertains to America and our discusion I don't think my statements need to be modified.

Well you have to ask yourself, 'what is slavery?'

Is it chains and no pay? Or is it someone who is powerless to change thier situation?

Would hiring minorities from other countries for chicken feed be slavery? These people don't have options, they have families to feed.

Is your hispanic/whatever maid enslaved?

Well, according to that trust Dictionary.com:

slave  /sleɪv/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [sleyv] Show IPA noun, verb, slaved, slav⋅ing.
Use slave in a Sentence
–noun 1. a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant.
2. a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person: a slave to a drug.
3. a drudge: a housekeeping slave.
4. a slave ant.
5. Photography. a subsidiary flash lamp actuated through its photoelectric cell when the principal flash lamp is discharged.
6. Machinery. a mechanism under control of and repeating the actions of a similar mechanism. Compare master (def. 19).

Working for someone does not make you wholly subject to them, or their property. Being unable to leave someone's service is slavery. Someone who works at McDonald's isn't a slave of the company, even if they need money to eat. Maybe if McDonald's was somehow stopping anyone else from hiring him, he would be.

Unless you use the third definition of "slave", which just refers to everyone who has a crappy job, and is hardly relevant when compared to the slavery of, say, Africans in the American south.

When humanity was born we were naked and got our food day by day if we could catch/find it.

(I really am trying to explain something here)

Now most of us are better of than we started. Many of us are much better off. Some of us are much MUCH better off.

Your birth position is luck of the draw. But you made you what you are today. Some people have more for less effort because they started with it more. But plenty have lost the fortunes of their parents. In this most likely as brief as any other chapter of world history the west is top dog. Most of that wealth is from technology.

Those theoretical people being hired to feed chickens are stepping up on the ladder and I applaud them. We simply do not have the resuorces to instantly make everybody super well off right now (what anyone posting on this board is).

I am a cosponsor with my bible study group of a little girl in Puerto Rico. She is going to have a better opportunity in life than many of her neighbors. Is that wrong? What if we paid for her with money our great-great grandparents got by selling slaves? (Mine are from Ukraine. my mother was an orphan.) Would it be better to give it to another little girl in the same situation whose parents HAD been slaves?

What I'm trying to say is that the only thing society should ask of a person is that they live as well as they can and try to help those around them. Payingforthe sins ofthe forefathers is just backwards. It's really simple, set up the college funds for the financially disadvantaged. The colleges are already looking for everyone. I can't think of a single college that discriminates against minorities in America.

As for what a slave is: I guess you could slice it a lot of ways. But I know this: there are no brave slaves in America.

Edit: This thread reminds me of the election coverage. In all the polls Obama was winning; vs Clinton in the primaries and Mcain in the general. Funny thing is, all the reporters where hesitant to call it for Obama because they were afraid many were posing and would really vote against him. They thought racism was strong enough to keep him down. They were wrong. Obama did better than Kerry in the white vote against the resuppositions of the 'culturally sensitive' media folk.

I also havean answer for the OP. No, but if you're a racist you automatically don't like Obama.

generalgrog wrote:OK, now that I was able to get my pudding joke in. (I can't believe you guys actually argued about pudding..LOL)

I live in a mountainous region of South West, Virginia. You might describe it as hillbilly country or hicksville, whatever. I was transfered here from Orlando, Florida, where I lived over 30 years. Which happens to be a very metropolitan area of the country. You have whites, blacks-african americans, many hispanics-mainly puerto ricans and Mexicans, many caribean naionalities, including Hatians, Jamacains, etc. not to mention all the yankees that move to Florida that we can't get rid of, and we have to listen to their incessant whining about the hot weather.

Anyway I digress, going from a metropolitan area to an area where I am now, really showed me how "backward" people in America can be. One of the first things I was asked when I arrived was, "I heard there were a lot of blacks in Florida?". When I was in western North Carloina, also mountanous hillbilly country, I was sitting at a table when one of the people I was dining with made a comment about a black person that was eating in the same room as us. "they usaully run them(meaning black people) out of here". That incident was around 1998.

During this last election (I voted Mcain by the way), I was very surprised by the amount of vitriol spewed out by my co workers against Obama. It's my opinion that most of that spewage was due to the fact that Obama happened to be black. It really opened my eyes as to how subtle racism can be. And I was able to instantaneously see how we as Americans tolerated the jim crow laws and the black codes.

Of course not liking Obama doesn't automatically make you a racist. I don't like him, I'm white, married to an east indian woman and attend a primarly black Church. But after this last election I saw more racism than I ever care to see again.

GG

That was really well put and I've gotta give credit, even if you are a tapioca pudding eating racist.




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Gwar! wrote:

Lordhat wrote:While we're at it, I'd like to apologize for Pompeii, and Atlantis!

Atlantis was clearly caused by Global Warming. You know, that thing that is being caused by Humans and their Cars (even though Volcanoes have been pumping out more than humans since the dawn of time, but what the hell lets blame cars)

Except the volcano thing is a myth. Human put out more than 130 times the amount of CO2 than volcanoes.

Scrabb wrote:
As for what a slave is: I guess you could slice it a lot of ways. But I know this: there are no brave slaves in America.

Edit: This thread reminds me of the election coverage. In all the polls Obama was winning; vs Clinton in the primaries and Mcain in the general. Funny thing is, all the reporters where hesitant to call it for Obama because they were afraid many were posing and would really vote against him. They thought racism was strong enough to keep him down. They were wrong. Obama did better than Kerry in the white vote against the resuppositions of the 'culturally sensitive' media folk.

I also havean answer for the OP. No, but if you're a racist you automatically don't like Obama.

Unless you're a racist BLACK person. The people in america have a lot of balls asking for reparation when they are 1000 times better off than other countries.

Also, I don't get why Palestine (of all places) was handed to the Jews (Israel). Most of the jews were from europe(After WWII), no?

Orkeosaurus wrote:

whatwhat wrote:It was. My point was that actions taken 300 (200, 500, however many) years ago still have repercussions today and the people who are still benefiting from the actions done by their ancestors at the behest of other people need to bear some responsibility, especially when those people are still suffering because of it.

How do you plan to trace every benefit a person has had in life to something immoral done in their past?

"Oh, I'm sorry Dave, your great great grandfather was an escaped criminal! You never should have been born, I'm afraid I'll have to rectify that..."

Seriously though, it doesn't even work for wealth. Will people have money taken from them because their parent was a thief or drug dealer? How will you track down and tax the wealth that came from slave ownership? And determine how much of that wealth would have reached the slave's living ancestors? You can't.

Besides, it's on bad legal ground, since slavery wasn't illegal at the time the wealth was generated, thus making the payment of damages for it ex post facto.

#

I wasn't talking about giving money out or rectifying anything. Ketara's point was they shouldn't have to say sorry.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Also, I don't get why Palestine (of all places) was handed to the Jews (Israel). Most of the jews were from europe(After WWII), no?

..yes.... I wonder what could have possibly have happened to the European Jewish community in the late 1930s/early 1940s that could have led people to believe that the best chance for them was to have their own nation ? It's almost like people were feeling guilty and didn't quite think things through or something !

Actually..I do remember reading a few years back about some other plan that was also put forward to hand over ..err... somewhere odd like Alaska/that region for settlement ? Can't remember if that was a genuine proposal or merely one of those alternate history novel type affairs.

The weirdest potential 'Zion' I know of was to be in British Uganda.

Here's the quote from wikipedia.

Wikipedia wrote:
The "Uganda" proposal

In 1903, the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, suggested the British Uganda Program, land for a Jewish state in "Uganda" (in today's Uasin Gishu District, Eldoret, Kenya). Herzl initially rejected the idea, preferring Palestine, but after the April 1903 Kishinev pogrom, Herzl introduced a controversial proposal to the Sixth Zionist Congress to investigate the offer as a temporary measure for Russian Jews in danger. Despite its emergency and temporary nature, the proposal proved very divisive, and widespread opposition to the plan was fueled by a walkout led by the Russian Jewish delegation to the Congress. Nevertheless, a committee was established to investigate the possibility, which was eventually dismissed in the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905. After that, Palestine became the sole focus of Zionist aspirations.

Israel Zangwill left the main Zionist movement over this decision and founded the Jewish Territorialist Organization (ITO) . The territorialists were willing to establish a Jewish homeland anywhere, but failed to attract significant support and were dissolved in 1925.

, of course today that discussion could never happen. Well, at the very least it would have a different meaning

reds8n wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Also, I don't get why Palestine (of all places) was handed to the Jews (Israel). Most of the jews were from europe(After WWII), no?

..yes.... I wonder what could have possibly have happened to the European Jewish community in the late 1930s/early 1940s that could have led people to believe that the best chance for them was to have their own nation ? It's almost like people were feeling guilty and didn't quite think things through or something !

Actually..I do remember reading a few years back about some other plan that was also put forward to hand over ..err... somewhere odd like Alaska/that region for settlement ? Can't remember if that was a genuine proposal or merely one of those alternate history novel type affairs.

The west African nation of Liberia was established by the USA as a place to send freed negro slaves. At one stage Lincoln thought it would be best to free all the slaves and send them over there, but his talks with black leaders came to nothing.

At least Jewish people have a strong historical association with Palestine.

whatwhat wrote:I wasn't talking about giving money out or rectifying anything. Ketara's point was they shouldn't have to say sorry.

God dammit! I keep trying to come up with good arguments and then find out that's not even what you're talking about!

Well, as for apologies, I'm not sure how individuals are supposed to apologise. Apologizing for having an ancestor who was a slave owner isn't worth much, as it's not actually anything wrong. Apologizing on behalf of a slave owning ancestor is kind of silly, since that person probably wouldn't apologize if you animated him right now. I think the best you can do in that case is recognize what injustice occurred in the past, and who suffered and benefited from it; and try and prevent similar injustice from occuring in the future, whether related to the past or not.

As for a government, they can apologize. That's what they're there for in part, to act as sort of a diplomatic entity that outlives any of it's participants. It may ring kind of hollow as no member of government (or voter) is currently responsible for the institution of slavery, but it's probably more important that it's formally recognized as an injustice on the part of the government than it is as a real, heartfelt apology.

Orkeosaurus wrote:I think the best you can do in that case is recognize what injustice occurred in the past, and who suffered and benefited from it; and try and prevent similar injustice from occuring in the future, whether related to the past or not.

Yep, that would make a good apology.

I agree that its a good apology, but I think the civil war was the apology. The current government believed that it was wrong, the south seceded and war happened. Thousands of lives were lost and slavery is now gone. Slavery also became a crime and is punishable by law.

The south apologized by having their homes blown up and their way of life ruined(not just the slavery thing). The south was the agricultural center of the east and they lost their railroads and other means of getting machines, not to mention their factories were blown up as well.


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We also apologized for that and tried to rebuild most of the south.

eh?

First you apologize by blowing each other up, and then you apologize by rebuilding the stuff you blew up for apologizing?