Intelligence Squad #107

6/14/05

SORRY 2005
The Sentate In An Apologetic Mood

Monday night, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution formally apologizing for failing to make lynching a federal crime over the century from the end of the Civil War to the 1960's, during which the practice was regularly used without justification on thousands of black men throughout the U.S. South.

There is so much going on in this simple act that demands discussion that we hardly know where to begin. But let’s start here:

The vote was held late at night, all the better not to make it onto the evening news. Also all the better to avoid an actual roll call vote – where each senator would have to actually vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ – since it is easy for senators to make themselves "unavailable" after-hours. Odd actions for a body allegedly expressing its regret to the nation, no?

It seems that as of Tuesday afternoon, something like 16 senators had failed to sign their names as co-sponsors of the resolution, which was introduced way back in February, or refused to support a roll-call vote, which would have forced the nay-sayers to identify themselves. Not surprisingly -- but disappointingly -- they represent such ultra-white states as New Hampshire, Utah, and Idaho, as well as the two most retrograde states with respect to their historic treatment of blacks: Mississippi and Alabama. (Notable among the list is Senator Trent Lott. Apparently, his ridiculous apology on BET for the Strom Thurmond incident a couple years back wasn't all that sincere. We're shocked! Shocked!)

It is worth noting that with one exception -- Kent Conrad of North Dakota -- all of the above-mentioned senators are Republicans.

And they have the nerve to get upset when we point out the racism that underpins their party.

This little stunt is but the latest in a wave a actions by the federal and some Southern state governments to "address" their race-based sins of the past. Varying in their degrees of symbolism, these events include:

the 1988 apology and $20,000 reparations paid to Japanese-American victims of internment during World War II
the ongoing contemplation of a Senate apology to Native Americans for the near obliteration of their peoples in the United States
a series of spur-of-the-moment prosecutions for murders of civil rights activists and other blacks in the South during the 1950’s and ‘60’s, including Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, the four little girls in a Birmingham church, and starting just this week: Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner, they of the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

If the Senate is looking for something to apologize to blacks for, how about sending judges to the federal bench who failed to enforce the Equal Protection clause of the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution for, oh, about a hundred years? Some folks may not have noticed, but during that period the ability of most blacks to advance through the standard institutions of property ownership, education, and career-development was systematically undercut throughout the nation by law and by practice.

How about apologizing for passing that mean-spirited tax cut for rich people a few years back, which will place a crushing debt on the backs of most Americans, but almost all black Americans, a few decades from now?!

And confirming Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court? What's up with that?!!! He was one of just three justices who just this week dissented in a ruling that a black death row convict in Texas was intentionally denied black jurors for no reason other than race. Y’all need to be apologizing for foisting his sorry behind on us!

The Senate can eat its apology, for all we care. If it wants to do something to assuage its guilt over its heinous racial past, it needs to bring the substance. It found a way to come up with cold cash for the Japanese-Americans, so substance is a possibility. We’re not saying that cash payments to African-Americans is necessarily the answer – or even feasible. However, it is within the power of the Congress to pass legislation that substantively attacks the crystallization of the secondary political/socio-economic status of African-Americans. In fact, it is not just within its power; we feel it is its obligation.

If the Senate wants to show true regret for its past failings, it should drop the talk, and get with the action. We are sure that what’s left of the Native American population would agree.

Knowledge Is Power