U.S. Senate Apologizes for Slavery...blah, blah

Today the U.S. Senate passed a resolution apologizing to Black Americans for the wrongs of slavery and segregation. The resolution is similar to the U.S. House of Representatives nonbinding resolution, (does not obligate them to do anything – they patted themselves on the back and said that’s that), adopted last year. Besides only a handful of senators was present for the voice vote, so they can say to the people who sent them to Congress, I didn’t have anything to do with it. And because the resolution is nonbinding, it does not have to be forwarded to the president for his signature.

Several states have passed similar resolutions, but last year’s House resolution was the first time a branch of the U.S. federal government did so. The resolution “acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery, and Jim Crow laws," and "apologizes to Black Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws." Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enacted mostly in U.S. Southern and border states between the 1870s and 1965 that acted to deny the right to vote and other civil liberties to Blacks, and to legally segregate them from Whites (you know, the same crap that the U.S. said that South Africa was wrong for doing).

It doesn't fix anything, but it does at least put it on paper that the country admits to injustice. Many members of the Black community have called on lawmakers to give cash payments (reparations) or other financial benefits to descendants of slaves as compensation for the suffering caused by slavery (like they did for descendants of Japanese citizens that were held in camps during World War II or the grants given to Native-American tribes for hijacking their land). But the nonbinding resolution made it quite clear the only thing we are getting is a “we’re sorry, now shut up and get on with your Juneteenth celebrations” (June 19, the day in 1865 when word of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas – two years after it actually was issued.)

At lease now we can show our children that the U.S. government has admitted they were wrong. And we must not depend on anyone to take care of us but God and ourselves.