You really have convinced me though, that is no game. You convinced me that this is not about an apology; it is about a way of thinking. This apology needs to happen in order for us to have a strong America once again. It is not a typical apology, more of a realization of a bad choice made years ago that still impacts the families of the people whom the decision had hurt. It is a realization of the fact that we really do hold these truths to be self evident, that all people are created equal.

As long as we are on the topic of apologizing, I would like to apologize to James. Some of the things I said were designed to shock and upset you, to bring you off topic and distract you. You never faltered and all of your points where very thought out and valid. Job well done James, I was waiting to hear things such as “white terror, white supremacy” and that was the whole reason for the apology. Not the case though as you have enlightened me of the deeper reasoning behind the apology. The fact that it is called an apology is confusing though, so that is why I posted my first post.

James, thank you. You have taught me that there are people that take time to think, not just react. Too many people just want to react like everything in this crazy mixed up world is a crisis. You have taught me a different way to look at a situation and view it with all hearts and minds, not just my own. I hope to see he bill pass and I hope that more people think as you do James.

As for Michael Jackson, he was an alleged child molester, that’s true. He was also acquitted, and I’m not in a position to judge those verdicts. It sounds like the evidence was highly suggestive, but ambiguous.

In any event, he was also the most successful pop star in history, and I believe his undeniable talent and fame are what people have been celebrating.

minorities of a society are a majority of our prison system, but that is because they were slaves right?

First of all, let’s get the statistic right: Blacks are a minority in U.S. prisons. All minorities, put together, are still a minority in U.S. prisons. The majority of U.S. prisoners are, in fact, white.

However, it’s undeniable that blacks are disproportionately represented in our prisons. The question you raise is, why?

Does it have something to do with the racial injustice which we can still observe in the justice system? Yes.

Does it have something to do with the legacy of poverty, lack of opportunity and community institutions, despair and mistrust in mainstream institutions with which our nation’s history of slavery and racial discrimination has left us? Yes.

Does it have something to do with values? Yes.

On the last cause, which seems to be what you want to focus on, where do you think that comes from?

We know that young people from poor urban neighborhoods tend to have similar attitudes towards issues like work and crime, regardless of their race. So part of this is surely a simple matter of extrapolating from the fact that blacks in this country are disproportionately poor and segregated into urban neighborhoods.

We also know that to the extent that young people in black communities are more likely to exhibit values which result in criminal behavior, rather than productive citizenship, those values must come from somewhere. If you don’t believe that this is the result of inherent racial differences (which I assume you don’t), and you don’t believe that it stems from the impact of our long history of racial discrimination on cultural attitudes, then what do you believe is the source?

I did not think you would either he is still alive, however if tommarrow he dies then he will rise to hero status just as a sick demented child molester did earlier this week.

How is this for a statistic, when minorities of a society are a majority of our prison system, but that is because they were slaves right? Not because of life choices they have made, but because of their cast in life since birth.

I think the research in this area is quite sound, and all points in the same direction.

How quickley we forget of our President’s former Pastor, or does he not count?

You consider him to be a black hero? I’m quite surprised.

“Who are you talking about? I can’t recall any black heroes who have suggested that white people are inferior.”

No? Nobody at all? How quickley we forget of our President’s former Pastor, or does he not count?

Yes, you do live in that nation. Thank goodness.

Do you really believe that an entertainer shouldn’t be fired if his listeners are offended by his patently racist slurs against young people?

Now, I’m not defending the use of the “n-word” by musicians, which seems to be what you’re referring to. However, if they’re using the word not to offend on racial lines, but to critique their society, that’s their business. If their listeners find their words to be appropriate, or even a trenchant commentary on their own lives, then so be it.

You’re not talking about the use of the “n-word” by a white person in an innocent context, or one in which he is making an appropriate social commentary involving race. You’re talking about a situation in which he said terrible, hateful things about innocent young people, and he was understandably fired for doing so.

A nation that when a black man talks about how great his race is he becomes a hero, when a white man talks about how great his race is he is a raciest.

Who are you talking about? I can’t recall any black heroes who have suggested that white people are inferior.

Now, I’ll grant you that there are fine lines here. For a member of a disadvantaged minority to seek to have people respect that minority, and to generate pride among the members of that minority, to dispel hateful myths about them, is a good thing. For a member of an advantaged majority to seek to promote his race to the exclusion of other races is not, and is the very definition of “racist.”

However, there’s nothing wrong with emphasizing that white people shouldn’t feel badly about themselves, just as there is something very wrong with suggesting that black people are somehow superior racially.

You want “racial justice”??? How delusional are you?

How do these examples you’ve cited indicate that it would be wrong to seek racial justice?

The statistics show that black families in this country have never recovered from slavery and the Jim Crow century, and that they face quite a bit of discrimination even today.

Against this, you want to set society’s relative tolerance for black people to promote black pride, and relative intolerance for white people who spout racial hatred?

It’s a broad term, and in this case, I was using it to refer to the inequities and injustices which have resulted from our nation’s history of slavery and racial discrimination, and which you seemed to be saying we shouldn’t address because of the issue’s divisiveness.

To me it seems to mean that a simple apology will not fix.

I certainly agree that a simple apology will not fix racial injustice in this country.

To me it sounds like now the whites should become slaves because the blacks used to be and now seek justice.

Where do you get that idea? Who seems to be calling for white people to be enslaved, or even to be punished in any way as a means of obtaining “justice”? It’s one thing to say that justice is done when wrongs are compensated for, but quite another to even suggest that people should be punished for something they haven’t done.

Now I might be a total moron and an ignorant man, but to me there will never be “racial justice”

Okay, let’s stipulate that there can never be racial justice, by which I assume you mean that we can never perfectly undo the harm that our nation has done on the basis of race.

So what? Does that mean we don’t try? That we ignore the issue? That we avoid any acknowledgment of the problem?

I am saying that the apology will not be the end. It will mealy be the beginning.

Are you saying, then, that it would be an apology which would unleash this outpouring of support for racial justice, which you believe would be so divisive and so terrible for our country?

If so, is that really an argument against an apology?

“Well they admitted to being wrong so where is my real compensation?”

I fail to see how that’s likely, or would get anywhere at all.

Unless, of course, there’s a sound basis for arguing that the wrong was genuine, and that there is still harm for which compensation is appropriate.

In that case, however, I once again fail to see that this is an argument against apologizing. Quite the contrary, in fact.

It will bring the races at each other’s throats because it will serve as a wedge dividing us further, not bringing us closer

Do you not believe that addressing this injustice will ultimately bring the races closer together? Or does your argument hinge on an unspoken belief that these claims would be entirely invalid, rather than having some validity that could be addressed and worked out?

To acknowledge that we as a nation made a terrible error, we are sorry; now let’s move on to bigger and better things.

I think you’re saying that you believe the nation should acknowledge its wrongs, but that you don’t believe it should try to do anything about them.

If so, our disagreement may simply lie in my unwillingness to dismiss, out of hand, any desire to address the consequences. I fail to see how that’s necessarily just, and I certainly don’t see how that would, in fact, bring us closer together.

You say, for instance, that you want us to finally become “a nation where everyone is really equal.” How do we do that without addressing the injustices of the past, which have left such inequality today? Or do you mean merely the type of equality in which we can say that black Americans have been disadvantaged by their nation’s past racism, but that they should simply accept those disadvantages because they will now be treated equally?

I guess we are not allowed to have a strong country anymore though. We have to apologize for everything we have ever done.

Do you really believe that a strong country is one which doesn’t acknowledge its wrongdoing, and doesn’t try to change?

That’s certainly not how we understand what makes a strong individual, am I right?

sorry for having black slaves (even though blacks were purchased from other black kings)

Are you actually suggesting that we shouldn’t be sorry, or shouldn’t bother saying so, because OTHER PEOPLE also committed misdeeds?

I hate to go back to the argument about how we raise children, but I seem to recall something about “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

sorry for being born a white male (apparently I am the enemy and did not know it)

I don’t know what in this discussion makes you think that anyone wants you to apologize for your race.

Isn’t that the whole point? To get people past this nonsense in which they see race as significant? In which you feel as though an apology from the nation somehow implicates you because of your race? In which you see it as significant, not that other people were involved in slavery, but what race they were (your belief that it’s important that “black” people were involved in slavery)?

I didn’t mean to imply that the experience of immigration doesn’t affect people’s resources and opportunities. Lots of things do that, including the talents people are born with, and pure luck, too.

However, it’s entirely true that our nation’s sorry history of racial discrimination has dramatically affected people’s opportunities, and that’s the issue here. For instance, those immigrants who had to “start over” often came with basic education or a little savings, and even those who came with nothing faced far fewer barriers than black families at the time.

So rich families stay rich and poor families stay poor. This is true no matter what race or time period you are talking about.

There are two issues here. First, there is still plenty of racial prejudice left in employment, education, and other areas. Things are better, but far from equal. This means that poor black families face obstacles that poor white families do not, and simply working hard won’t usually cut it.

Second, the issue at hand is that in the case of race, black families today tend to have far less than white families, because of our nation’s past wrongdoing. You can believe that this should be addressed, or not, but you seem to be dismissing it out of hand, or lumping it in with the fact that some families simply prosper more than others.

The truth is not being denied. We all know slaves were in this country and it was a horrible and tragic thing that was done.

Yet every time I point out the second half of this equation, that these horrible and tragic past events cause real injustice for millions of American families today, you object and start talking about other issues–like the fact that there are other sources of injustice or unfairness in life, too.

Can you see how that sounds like you’re unwilling to acknowledge the second half of the equation? Or that you want nothing to be done about it, but aren’t quite willing to say that American citizens need to accept the harm that their country has done to them without complaint? I’m not endorsing reparations as a practical or fair solution, but neither do I see a reason to object when people point out that there is an unresolved injustice here.

There are poor in every race, always has been always will be.

Yes. But if, say, the government reduces an American family to poverty through wrongdoing, don’t we usually allow that family to seek compensation for their loss?

We never say “oh, well, there are always going to be poor people. Now you’re among them.”

The main reason I am against the apology is that I believe the issue will not be dropped there.

What issue? The issue of our history and the racial injustice it has caused? I would imagine not, since an apology, whatever else it might do, would not magically fix the legacy of slavery and discrimination.

I do not want one more thing that the races are at each other’s throats about.

I don’t think that any of us do. Are you suggesting that a simple apology for our nation’s past wrongs would cause the races to be “at each other’s throats”? Are you suggesting that it would be so divisive to seek racial justice that we should back off that effort?