HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS
POLICANO, JOSEPH D.
major league baseball team. 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...
...I have no special authority to preach on the matter, and yet I have lived long enough to recognize by whose sweat and on whose back this country has been built and why...
...Some have argued that the president should not offer an apology for slavery because such an apology would have either no impact or a negative effect...
...And yet when the issue of race came up, all of them swore that they would never "take the risk" of hiring an African-American to fill a leadership role in their respective companies...
...Either way, if the president is still considering offering such a gesture, he ought not to put too much weight on the potential impact of the apology...
...While I would be unwilling to predict the political effects of a statement of regret, there is, I think, little reason to worry about people being lulled to sleep by it...
...If responsibility does not extend from the robber baron to his children, then so long as the perpetrator of a crime can escape indictment by his immediate victim when he is alive, then the material benefits of his wrongdoing can be passed along with impunity to future generations...
...Those who worry about the negative impact of a mea culpa are afraid that a proclamation of regret might distract us from the task of closing the divide in opportunities that exists today between AfricanAmericans and whites...
...Although I am not sure that a presidential apology would have the healing effects that some anticipate, I do know that white Americans have profited from slavery and discrimination...
...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...
...However, if ignorance of being privileged is an ignorance we ourselves are responsible for producing, then we become morally reproachable receivers of stolen goods...
...And to be psychologically realistic, whites have a strong investment in blinking at their assessment of the broad effects of racism...
...Individuals who benefit from a crime are mistaken in thinking that they have nothing to do with the crime...
...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...
...For one of myriad examples, the children of Abraham are blessed because of Abraham's faith...
...Or consider a story that a friend shared with me...
...My friend, who is about thirty-five, recently returned to his hometown in a Detroit suburb for a class reunion at his richly integrated public high school...
...Commonweal | 4 February 13, 1998...
...In other words, any white applicants who sought employment in one of their firms would have a decisive advantage over all African-American applicants...
...On the other side of the ledger, there was clearly a point in time when the Israelites believed that the sins of the father would be punishable unto the fourth generation...
...The revolutionary prophet Ezekiel inveighs against the notion of cross-generational responsibility...
...If acts of collective repentance make any sense at all it is on the basis of their kinship to individual expressions of repentance...
...No doubt some will reply that they are unaware of drawing any benefits from slavery and racism...
...he Hebrew Scriptures ring with intimations that blessings and blandishments can be passed on from generation to generation...
...Because of slavery and discrimination, AfricanAmericans have provided an endless supply of cheap labor...
...All were corporate executives and registered Democrats...
...After the reunion, four of his old school chums persuaded him to go out and play a few golf holes...
...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...
...I suspect that an apology for slavery would resonate in many different ways in the African-American community...
...They still work the fields, wash white babies and white octogenarians, shake drinks in country clubs, and mop floors in the classrooms in which white folks debate about race...
...By refusing to acknowledge who has been doing what for the last four hundred years, we fail to turn away from the grievous sins of our forefathers...
...Nowhere in either the Hebrew Scriptures or the New Testament is there counsel to the effect that asking for forgiveness is conditioned on our expression of repentance falling on welcoming ears...
...I was not involved in the civil rights struggle of the sixties...
...Apropos of this point, legal scholar Patricia Williams offered a powerful argument to the conclusion that if an apology is tendered, blacks ought to politely refuse to accept it [The Nation, July 14, 1997...
...As a result of institutionalized racism, African-Americans have been cornered into doing more than their fair share of protecting, building, and preserving this land...
...It was no accident that a black woman was there when my child first opened his blue eyes...
...If you do not believe me on the last count then consider the Texaco scandal in 1996 where unsuspecting white corporate executives were caught on tape espousing racist sentiments...
...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...
...Thus, whites are in no position to slough off the call for an apology by insisting that they have no connection to slavery...
...This lack of awareness would be exculpatory if in fact slavery and discrimination did not serve the interests of whites...
...For that reason, I suggest that even white Americans who have cursed racism have unwillingly and perhaps unwittingly benefited from it...
...In the Judeo-Christian tradition it is believed that once an apology is offered, it is the moral responsibility of the person transgressed against to decide whether or not to accept that apology...
...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...
...Once again, it is essential to distinguish between cases in which one generation is entirely innocent of a transgression committed by an earlier generation, and those in which the sins of the father continue to bear fruits of advantage for his descendants...
...Some fear that African-Americans will clutch onto the prize of an apology and become less persistent in their demands for initiatives intended to redress the destruction wrought by slavery and racism...
...When an individual repents, he acknowledges culpability and regret for harms that he has visited upon someone else...
...While I have huffed and puffed and shaken my head about racial injustice, I have made no significant sacrifices for the Commonweal | 3 February 13, 1998 cause of racial justice...
...When we refuse to acknowledge the harm that our community has inflicted upon others, when we the unoppressed refuse to acknowledge that, at least for a time, oppression benefits those who are not forced to walk on the other side of the street, then we fail to turn away from the sin of oppression...
...Clearly, I am neither responsible for the robbery nor am I in a position to apologize for it...
...By turning a blind eye, the sins of the father become the sins of the more passive son...
...Attempting to focus his people's attention on their individual actions, Ezekiel proclaims that if a man has a son "who has seen all the sins that his father has done, considers and does not do likewise...he shall not die from his father's sin" (Ezekiel: 18:14-17...
...Suppose, for example, that unbeknownst to me, a friend of mine robs a bank and makes off with $7 million...
...It was no mistake that a black woman closed my dead father's eyes...
...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...
...In a competitive society we have always had a leg up on African-Americans, whether it be in hunting for a job, loan, house, or advancement in a corporate firm...
...Would the fact that many years had gone by cover the sin to such a degree that I would not Commonweal | ~ February 13, 1998 bear any responsibility to the descendants of my great-grandparents' victims who, thanks to my ancestors, now led a distinctively unprivileged existence...
Vol. 125 • February 1998 • No. 3
