[cure-news] Contrition for America's Curse

[Ida Hakim]

Contrition for America's Curse
By Jonathan Capehart
Thursday, April 12, 2007; A27

Virginia did it in February. Maryland did it in March. North Carolina 
did it yesterday. Georgia, Missouri and Texas are thinking of doing it, 
as is the U.S. House of Representatives. "It" is a social justice fad 
that I can get into. "It" is an apology for slavery.

Actually, Virginia and Maryland didn't come right out and use the word 
"apology." Both states opted for "profound regret." North Carolina 
expressed " profound contrition." Translation: We're sorry. My reaction: 
Apology accepted.

That last sentence is sure to get me in trouble with the "40 acres and a 
Lexus" crowd. Obviously, that's an exaggeration of the broken promise of 
40 acres and a mule made to freed slaves during Reconstruction. But for 
many African Americans, an apology for slavery is not enough. They want 
reparations -- and that's not acceptable. But I'll come back to that in 
a minute.

Slavery ended in 1865. Its equally ugly and violent replacement, Jim 
Crow, ended in 1965. To bring things close to home: My cousins and I are 
the first generation of our family not to have to pick cotton in the 
fields of North Carolina. Yet the pernicious side effects of both 
institutions -- racism and all that comes with it -- are alive and well. 
The damage done to the nation is so pervasive that President Bill 
Clinton called the racial divide "America's constant curse."

While things are a far cry better today than they were when black labor 
was free and black lives were deemed valueless, blacks remain burdened 
by the legacy of slavery. Black male unemployment in 2006 was double the 
rate for all men, according to a report released last month by 
Congress's Joint Economic Committee. The Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention says that HIV-AIDS is a leading killer of African Americans 
and that African Americans make up half of those diagnosed. In 2000, 
African Americans were just 13 percent of the population but represented 
more than 40 percent of all convicted federal offenders, a 2004 report 
from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies noted.

Some are tempted to tell blacks yearning for an apology for slavery to 
get over it, to move on. But that's not possible. Even presidents of the 
United States know it's not possible. In a special address on race at 
the University of California at San Diego in 1997, Clinton said, "There 
is old, unfinished business between black and white Americans." In 2003, 
on Goree Island, Senegal, a gateway to servitude for millions during the 
slave trade, President Bush said, "The racial bigotry fed by slavery did 
not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that 
still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other 
times." Yet such honesty has not given way to a formal apology.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) introduced a well-meaning resolution in 
February to apologize for slavery. But some of the language left me 
cold, particularly where it says the House "expresses its commitment to 
rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against 
African-Americans." That's a reparations red flag. When I asked Cohen 
about this last month, he assured me that this resolution is about 
getting people to talk about our troubled past in order to take the 
first step to healing. Cohen swears his intent isn't to jump-start a 
movement for reparations. I'll take him at his word -- for now.

The debate over reparations would be oh-so-ugly. It would raise more 
questions than answers. Who would be eligible? (Would Sen. Barack Obama, 
who is half white Kansan and half black Kenyan? Or Oprah Winfrey, a 
billionaire?) Who would decide? (I can hear the blacker-than-thou crowd 
scrambling for seats at that table.) What form would reparations take -- 
money, land, tax credits, something else? How much would it be worth? 
How would it be paid? I have more questions than I have space to ask 
them. Trying to answer just those five would be bound to tear at the 
brittle fabric of national unity.

The breakdown of racial barriers over the past 40 years has made America 
a beautiful ethnic swirl. A 300-million-person Benetton ad writ large 
thanks to the sacrifices of millions of African slaves who helped make 
the United States a power unlike any other in history, one that was 
built on the back of "one of the great crimes of history," as Bush said 
on Goree Island. For that, the United States must apologize. Then we can 
move on.

The writer is a member of the editorial page staff. His e-mail address 
iscapehartj at washpost.com.