APOLOGIZE FOR SLAVERY?
Marino, Gordon
APOLOGIZE FOR SLAVERY? Facing up to the living past Gordon Marino or reasons that would be interesting to explore, gestures of collective repentance have recently become quite popular. In 1994,...
...Offering a more muted criticism, the Reverend Jesse Jackson remarked that an apology would have "no substantive value...
...Last year, President Bill Clinton apologized on behalf of We the People to the African-Americans who were the unwitting subjects in the infamous Tuskegee study on syphilis, and seriously considered the possibility of apologizing for slavery in general...
...In the summer of 1995, the Southern Baptists, who number over 15 million, voted to express a resolution of repentance which read in part, "We lament and repudiate historic acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest...
...This lack of awareness would be exculpatory if in fact slavery and discrimination did not serve the interests of whites...
...No doubt some will reply that they are unaware of drawing any benefits from slavery and racism...
...He then went on to warn that such gestures could "divert attention away from our ability to, in fact, close the gap [between whites and AfricanAmericans[ with real structure and investment...
...Or more to the point, "By what authority can I apologize for someone else's actions...
...A fair question which might be restated: "Why should I apologize for a crime that I had nothing to do with...
...As a professor of philosophy, over the years I have encountered many white students who accurately or paranoically believe that they are constantly being asked to feel guilty and repent for racist institutions and actions in which they themselves had no hand...
...British Prime Minister Tony Blair has apologized for England's indifference to the plight of the Irish during the Potato Famine, and in January the Canadian government formally apologized for its historic mistreatment of indigenous peoples...
...In this regard, it would be useful to distinguish between actions that one neither commits nor profits from and actions not committed but profited from...
...Likewise, it would be absurd to pretend that I could repent for slaveholders and traders who themselves refused to repent...
...And yet, the logic of their claim that responsibility only extends as far as one's own free will would seem to militate against the idea of any form of egoenhancement derived from the accomplishments of others...
...On the other hand, the civil rights leader Julian Bond maintained that an apology for slavery would be a good and important symbolic gesture...
...To return to my earlier example, let us assume that when I accepted the gift of a million dollars, I had no reason to think that the money had been stolen, but that years later I came to understand that the funds upon which I had built a comfortable and respectable life had been pilfered from the accounts of your great-grandparents...
...This minor inconsistency aside, many who sneer or snarl at the suggestion of apologizing for deeds from the deep past need to consider the possibility that we may bear a moral connection to actions that we did not ourselves commit...
...Ward Connerly, an African-American entrepreneur, regent of the University of California, and architect of the California anti-affirmative action referendum, Proposition 209, pronounced this verdict on the idea: "Apologizing for slavery is probably one of the dumbest things anyone could do...
...It could, I think, be argued that white people have profited from our racist past and thus, relative to slavery, we are more akin to receivers of stolen goods than we are to innocent bystanders who just happen to bear a physical likeness to slave owners...
...Suppose, for example, that unbeknownst to me, a friend of mine robs a bank and makes off with $7 million...
...In 1994, the pope offered an apology for past sins committed by the church against non-Catholics...
...The wife of a professor commented, "Why should I apologize for something done to blacks more than a hundred years ago...
...However, if after telling me about the theft, I accept a million dollars of the stolen loot, then I am no longer innocent of the robbery, despite the fact that I had nothing at all do to with the heist...
...said he probably would not favor an official apology, "because I think we should be looking to the future, talking about things we need to do to work together...
...Others scoffed at repenting for what they took to be ancient history...
...Last summer, in between Little League baseball games in Gordon Marino is associate professor of philosophy and director of the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library at Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota...
...When it comes to race and repentance, these students are of the Aristotelian opinion that we should be praised or blamed only for our own voluntary actions...
...The president subsequently called for a "national conversation" about race, and appointed a commission to promote such a conversation...
...It would, after all, be hubristic for me to think that I could repent for a mugging in which I did not participate...
...And the recent release of Steven Speilberg's Amistad has made the history and moral legacy of slavery a vibrant issue yet again...
...a largely white Minnesota town, I did some informal polling of my own...
...Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss...
...And to be psychologically realistic, whites have a strong investment in blinking at their assessment of the broad effects of racism...
...Reactions to Clinton's initial proposed mea culpa varied...
...Here it should be observed that, oddly enough, many of them feel no qualms about taking pride in the accomplishments of the various communities with which they identify, such as their college, fellow countrymen, townsfolk, church brethren, or for that matter, members of their local Commonweal | | February 13, 1998 major league baseball team...
...Would the fact that many years had gone by cover the sin to such a degree that I would not Commonweal | ~ February 13, 1998...
...Though none of the people I talked to took the president's proposed apology to be an urgent matter, about half expressed mild support for the idea...
...However, if ignorance of being privileged is an ignorance we ourselves are responsible for producing, then we become morally reproachable receivers of stolen goods...
...Clearly, I am neither responsible for the robbery nor am I in a position to apologize for it...
Vol. 125 • February 1998 • No. 3
