[cure-news] Black lawmakers seek Virginia apology for slavery

[Ida Hakim]

Black lawmakers seek Virginia apology for slavery

By DIONNE WALKER
Associated Press Writer

  RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- A proposed state apology for African enslavement
would set a national example of racial reconciliation, said a group of
black Virginia lawmakers who introduced the legislation Wednesday.

The joint resolution urges that Virginia "acknowledges and atones for
its pivotal role in slavery" and work to reconcile "centuries of brutal
dehumanization and injustices."

A similar request for an apology to Virginia Indians is planned, said
Sen. Henry Marsh, D-Richmond, a patron of the resolution, which he
called a state first.

"This is going to be more than an on-paper apology. This is an act by
the General Assembly," said Marsh, flanked by several lawmakers who
traced their ancestry to slaves. "Virginians are ready."

The effort comes amid preparations to commemorate the 400th anniversary
of Jamestown, America's first permanent English settlement. Marsh
called it time for Virginia to again be first.

"It's important because of the role Virginia played ... that we also
play a role in seeking reconciliation among the races," he said.

Marsh said the goal is not dredging the past, but creating a building
block for a racially united future.

Del. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, likened it to resolving a family
dispute.

"We cannot heal as Americans until everyone is at the table," she said.
"Unfortunately, with race relations in America and Virginia, we never
had the apology."

Virginia has a centuries-old slave history, with the first Africans
arriving at Jamestown in 1619.

Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, became another point
of arrival for Africans and a hub for the trade of surplus slaves.

Centuries later, Virginia played a major role in the fight over
desegregation: Officials in Prince Edward County resisted mixing races
by chaining public school houses for nine years. The "Massive
Resistance" created whites-only private schools, forcing black students
to seek their educations elsewhere.

Virginians have made contemporary gestures to recognize their racially
divided past.

A national slavery museum is planned in Fredericksburg, supported by
former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected
black governor.

Jamestown 2007 organizers are highlighting the role of blacks and
American Indians at the settlement; in Richmond, a reconciliation
monument is included in a slave history trail planned near Capitol
Square, itself the future home of a civil rights memorial.

"In the past 40, 50 years, there's been huge improvement," said John
Carlisle, director of policy for the National Legal and Policy Center,
a think tank in Falls Church. He worried an apology would create
divisions, rather than dismantle them.

"It will just greatly antagonize a lot of people and promote racial
bitterness," he said. "I don't think it does anything to promote racial
reconciliation - and it's a gateway to reparations."

While recent years have seen businesses and universities re-examine
their roles in the slave trade, the issue of reparations for slave
descendants has complicated formal apologies by state and federal
lawmakers.

Marsh said the resolution is not a first step to such an effort.
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Wed Jan 10 14:02:09 2007
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Wed Jan 10 13:58:38 2007
Subject: [cure-news] Democratic proposals don't take on Racial Wealth Divide
	- Interview
Message-ID: <45A54641.8070009 at reparationsthecure.org>

Newly in charge House Democrats are set to begin their first "100 
legislative hours" today. They have promised to pass a series of bills 
that they say amounts to "a New Direction for America." The Democratic 
agenda includes increasing the minimum wage, cutting the interest rate 
on student loans, reducing the price of prescription drugs and ending 
some subsidies to big oil companies.
But a new study has found that this agenda does little to address the 
economic divide in this country between whites and people of color and 
that the impact of the legislation will not change the economic 
inequalities between the races. The report is titled "State of the Dream 
2007: Voting Blue, Staying in The Red" and is being released today by 
United for a Fair Economy.


Meizhu Lui, executive director of United for a Fair Economy. She is the 
co-author of the report.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: Meizhu Lui joins us from Boston, executive director of 
United for a Fair Economy, co-author of the report. Welcome to Democracy 
Now!

MEIZHU LUI: Thanks so much.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Well, this ?100 hours of 
legislation? has been much touted, of course, by the new Democrats, the 
new Democratic leadership. Can you talk about the issues that you 
analyzed and what it means for people in this country?

MEIZHU LUI: Well, we were also thinking that it is almost Martin Luther 
King?s birthday and that the Democratic Party was the party of African 
Americans since the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, they have been the 
most loyal voters for the Democrats since 1968, voting rarely below 90% 
for African Americans. So if you have had friends that stuck with you 
through thick and thin, you?d think that you would want to do something 
for them when you had an opportunity. We find that this 100-hour agenda 
really does not do anything to close the racial economic gap, which has 
grown wider over the last number of years.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, talk specifically. Let's start, for example, with the 
minimum wage.

MEIZHU LUI: Yes. The minimum wage was last raised in 1997, and we also 
found that Congress raised its own wages eight times during that same 
period of time. But even if you look at that minimum wage raise to $7.25 
an hour in 2009, that will not even bring people up to the level of 
poverty. In fact, we found that if you increase the minimum wage by 70 
cents for every year, it would take up to the year 2013 to even reach 
the poverty level.

Now, people of color are disproportionately minimum-wage earners. 
However, they are also twice as likely -- African Americans are twice as 
likely to be unemployed as whites. So if the Democrats of this new 
administration doesn't do something about unemployment -- it's been a 
long time since we had a commitment to full employment -- we're going to 
still see people living under poverty, and that will not stop the 
declining of folks with more middle class jobs. And, as you know, the 
layoffs in auto and other manufacturing sectors have hit African 
Americans particularly hard.

AMY GOODMAN: The issue of college loans, what do you think has to be 
done there?

MEIZHU LUI: Well, cutting the interest rate is really not going to help 
too much. The cost of college tuition has risen astronomically. Even for 
public colleges the tuition rates have gone up by 51%. So we really feel 
like the loans don't do that much to help people who don't have the 
capability to pay these higher tuition rates to get through college. So 
we?ve seen declining enrollments. We?ve seen declining graduation rates. 
Blacks now graduate at only 42%. It?s 62% for whites, and that has a lot 
to do with the cost of higher education these days.

In 1975, the US government gave 77% of its dollars in scholarships and 
only 20% in loans. Now, that is reversed, so that 70% is in loans. 
Certainly, our government could give scholarships again. That would 
certainly help for those who don't have the capability. African 
Americans have only 15 cents in terms of wealth and assets to the white 
person?s dollar of assets, so clearly their families are not as able to 
help their children get that college education that is so necessary 
today to get a job with a slightly higher income.

AMY GOODMAN: Meizhu Lui is executive director of United for a Fair 
Economy, that?s come out with this report that's just being released 
today that says the legislation being passed in this first 100 hours is 
not going to decrease the divide between people of color and whites. 
What about Medicare?

MEIZHU LUI: Well, with the drug proposal that they have, it would allow 
the government to negotiate better rates with pharmaceuticals, and we're 
happy that they're going to take on the pharmaceuticals. Don?t get us 
wrong; this is a good thing. However, in terms of who it would help, 
right now very low-income seniors, and that is disproportionately people 
of color, already have subsidized drugs. In fact, under Medicaid, they 
really had it much easier in terms of just being able to present your 
Medicaid card and to get the drugs that you need. The lower drug prices 
that can be negotiated now will help more middle-income seniors, and 
that group is disproportionately white. So again, it's not a bad thing, 
but it doesn't do anything to close the racial gap.

AMY GOODMAN: You also talk about reducing oil subsidies. How does that 
play in here?

MEIZHU LUI: Well, once again, we're very happy that they want to reduce 
oil subsidies to the big oil companies. So taking on these giant 
corporations both in pharmaceutical and oil is certainly a good thing, 
but in terms of who will it benefit, again, this proposal will not 
benefit people of color, so that if you look at the sort of greater 
investment in the ethanol industry in the Midwest, that?s not exactly 
the part of the country where we have the most people of color living, 
so that an increase of jobs will not really help them that much. In 
terms of farmers, black farmers in the South are losing land at an 
alarming rate. This is not going to help them, either.

So some of the things that government could do, because low-income 
people are going to be cold this winter if it ever gets colder, which I 
think it will, but fuel assistance is something that is still very 
necessary. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, for instance, 
only served five million people, while 32 million were eligible. We 
could increase that funding again. And public transportation certainly 
is a way to reduce energy. And last year, our ?State of the Dream? 
report showed that people of color own cars at a much lower rate than 
whites. Public transportation is very necessary for them to be able to 
get to jobs, as well as lowering our country's energy needs.

AMY GOODMAN: Meizhu Lui, you talk about the ethanol industry, 
alternative energy sources, and how that, too, does not serve African 
Americans and people of color?

MEIZHU LUI: Well, that's right, because the bio-fuel technology and 
those jobs are not going to -- again, they're more located in the 
Midwest. And some of the new jobs in science and engineering, 
unfortunately, are not -- occupations are not degrees that African 
Americans and Latinos are getting in large numbers. It's only like 6.2% 
African Americans have a graduate degree, only 2.2% Latinos are getting 
degrees, in those fields.

So, really, we have to look, as we did, at the end of the ?60s at very 
targeted programs to close the gap. I think the Democrats right now 
might be thinking that simply by having a allegedly colorblind proposal, 
that it?s going to help people of color more, but that's not true. We 
have seen from our history that you have to be very intentional about 
closing the wealth gap. And we hope that in hour 101 and beyond, the 
Democrats will get back to that agenda that the Democratic leaders in 
the 1960s and early ?70s had put a lot on the line to take risks, to 
spend money, to think very specifically about how do we close the race 
gap. And in this time right before Martin Luther King's birthday, we 
think it would only be appropriate for them to think about how can they 
help their most loyal supporters over all these years.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to this latest study that?s determined the 
biggest beneficiaries of President Bush's tax cuts have been families 
earning more than $1 million. They got something like a $58,000 tax cut 
for every family that earned more than $1 million, certainly does not 
compare to middle-income and lower-income families.

MEIZHU LUI: No, we see an increasing gap. And really, United for a Fair 
Economy has been working hard to stop the permanent repeal of the estate 
tax, which would give even more money to those at the very, very top. 
And certainly, we have seen that trickle-down does not work. But we have 
also seen from our country's history that investing in the base does 
work. So if you think about the GI bill, as we?ve been talking about 
education, paying the college tuition of all of those GIs, 5 million 
mostly white GIs benefited from that program. And, in fact, Truman said 
in 1947 that we could extend public education to fourteen years instead 
of twelve. That's something that we could be looking at again today.

AMY GOODMAN: Overall, Meizhu Lui, your assessment of this first 100 
hours of legislation?

MEIZHU LUI: Well, I think that it's been clear that the Democrats have 
been trying to pick the low hanging fruit, as they say, and that 
certainly these are positive things. However, on the scale of things, we 
feel like they are really tiny improvements and that we need to see much 
more, and we would feel much better if they had talked not just about 
these 100 hours, but what were they going to do -- is this like a small 
down payment on what's going to happen in the coming year, particularly 
in terms of investing to close the race gap.

AMY GOODMAN: Meizhu Lui is the co-author of the report, "[State of the 
Dream 2007: Voting Blue, Staying in the Red]," from United for a Fair 
Economy. Thank you very much for being with us. She joins us from Boston.

MEIZHU LUI: Thank you.