Senate Apology - Necessary?
6/14/2005
I was impressed by the words of Obama and Kerry yesterday during the Senate Apology to Lynching Victims. As a 'progressive' American of mixed descent - Black Dutch, Irish, Cherokee - my instinctive reaction was to feel represented - and honored - that our Senate would assume the responsibility that previous congregations ignored. To at last respect the unquiet dead and officialize the Senate position, to begin a new healing process - instead of breeding an atmosphere that we would only have to apologize for in another 100 years.
However, given my experience in living in small 'white' towns across America, I question the power of those words to affect change where it needs to happen. Call my cynical, but I speculate that while the apology may be politically necessary, it is perhaps a little fruitless in the real world (can anybody say 'Granstanding?'). Also, a small part of me wonders whether it is the Senate's place to assume the responsibility for the sins of their predecessors at all (except that apparently there were around 20 Senators not in support of the apology - for whatever reason).
Let me quote a song by Minor Threat, a wonderful straight-edge hardcore band from the '80s of which Dischord Records and Fugazi emerged.
I'm sorry
For something I didn't do
Lynched somebody
But I didn't know who
You blame me
For slavery
A hundred years before I was born.
Healing gets to happen where it needs to happen. It always does, and that's the beauty of this planet and the hope in all our hearts. Meanwhile, humanity's darkest, basest acts of racism and hate continue to this day. We fight a "War onTerror" all over the planet, but rarely do we hear anything about eliminating the hatred and intolerance within our own borders, where it flourishes amid the war-loving, bloodthirsty, bumpersticker-crazy society we interact with every day. Will the Senate Apology kickstart a healing process in those places, or will it only make the 'racially tolerant' constituents feel warm and fuzzy about their comfortable belief system while the racial fire that stirs in the outlands of the far-right is heightened in spite of it?
After watching the apology last night, I couldn't help but wonder how many reactionary crosses were being burned. I couldn't help but think of all the ignorant, racicst people I grew up with in a dozen small towns. I couldn't help but feel nauseated by the fact that many people still fear and hate people of color, or creed, or sexual orientation. And these people are still out there. Raising their kids and grandkids in small towns all across the country to be just like them, or worse. Fucking clones of hate and stupidity. The planet is crawling with them.
When I was younger, I lived in a few of these small 'white' towns. In many of them, not a single person of color could be found, or else they simply avoided being in public for long. It's a frightening thing for a child to come from a 'big city' where the population is predominantly black to a small town where nearly everyone maintains an acceptable and verbal level of hatred for black people. Or homosexuals. Or anyone differn't. And because you are 'white,' people don't even think twice about tossing racial slurs around. What is a kid going to do against an entire town full of racists?
Racism is still a disease in this country. The apology may be politically necessary, but the solution to promoting awareness of unity is not up to the Senate. Or Congress. Or our illustrious king George. It's up to everyone on an individual level.
Lastly, what about the atrocities that our Government is committing right now? An apology is only as good as the follow-up. Let's clean up the whole back yard, not just the tool shed.
posted by Edward Svengali @ Tuesday, June 14, 2005,
