April 25, 2007

Facing Up to a Role in Slavery

Two months after the Virginia General Assembly passed a resolution apologizing with “profound regret” for the state’s slave-holding past, one of its most revered institutions has followed suit. The University of Virginia announced Tuesday that its board had passed a unanimous resolution expressing “particular regret” for the university’s use of slave labor from its founding in 1819 through the end of the Civil War.

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The institution believes this is the first such resolution passed by a university governing board. In 2004, the University of Alabama’s faculty apologized for its historical role during slavery, and last year Brown University released a report summarizing several years of research into its ties to the slave trade. In recent months, other state legislatures have passed or begun debate on resolutions similar to Virginia’s, leading to what Alfred L. Brophy, a professor of law at the University of Alabama who led the apology effort in the faculty senate there, called a “domino effect.”

Unlike the efforts at Brown, the Virginia resolution offers an admission of guilt on behalf of a public institution, and unlike Alabama, it carries the weight of the entire governing board. (It doesn’t, however, contain the word “apology.") “Our effort here was aimed at recognizing the artisanship and blood, sweat and tears put into what is considered to be the leading architectural accomplishment in the United States,” said Thomas F. Farrell II, the rector (or chairman) of the board.

The university has stepped up its diversity and recruitment efforts in the past five years — a marked change from its reluctance to embrace the civil rights movement four decades ago. Warren M. Thompson, a member of the board and chair of its special committee on diversity, said the resolution had added value for him personally as the great-great-grandson of a slave who lived in the area. “I’m very proud of this and proud of my fellow board members,” Thompson said. “My father grew up about 20 miles from the university and was not allowed to go to the university because of his race, and he made sure all three of his children got degrees from the university. But he told me this story time and time again ... I said to him, if you stop telling the story, I’ll try to do something about it.”

Thompson characterized the resolution both as an acknowledgment of the forced labor that helped bring the university into being as well as an “affirmative statement about what we’d like to do in the future, and continue to do in the future, in making the university one that is open to people based strictly on people’s ability and their desire to work hard.”

The effort comes after not only the state’s resolution but the board’s authorization of a memorial stone at the Rotunda for the slaves who worked at the university. But even as the university does what it deems necessary to atone for its own past, Farrell said, the history of “slavery is a part of what this country is all about, and what this state is all about, and what this institution is all about.”

That, Brophy hopes, will now spur other institutions to follow a similar path. “I think what’s important is that the great University of Virginia has done this,” he said. “It makes it both more acceptable and important for other institutions to undertake similar investigations.”

What Brophy, the author of Reparations: Pro and Con (Oxford University Press), finds important, beyond the apology itself, is that such investigations help illuminate “the connection between the past and the present, getting further knowledge in which the institution of slavery is connected to the present.” Otherwise, “people wouldn’t have any reason to know that UVa owned any slaves.”

Peter S. Carmichael, a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro who has studied the Civil War and Southern identity, said that the apology is something that people across the political divide should embrace. But he added that it might discourage focusing on the complexities of the antebellum South and those who lived in slave societies.

“The resolution has its value in bringing attention to the fact that the University of Virginia was created, was sustained, was energized by the institution of slavery — in its physical construction and also in its intellectual climate,” he said, “committed intellectually, economically and politically to the institution of slavery.” But he added that it would do nothing to add to existing discussions of slavery in the classroom, and that it could “give some people a sense of moral superiority over the past.”

One figure who will surely be invoked in the discussions surrounding the resolution is the university’s founder, Thomas Jefferson. While he publicly opposed slavery and expressed deep personal qualms about that feature of American society, he owned slaves himself.

“We realize and recognize that Thomas Jefferson is viewed as the founder of the university, the architect of the university, but we also realize that someone got the footings, laid the bricks, put the roof on, and much of that work was done by enslaved men and women, and now it’s time that we recognize those people as well,” Thompson said.

— Andy Guess

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Comments

Apologies

Of course we, who are living in the present, “regret” what happened dozens, hundreds or even thousands of years ago in eras of the past because, in retrospect, we can see how wrong what others did in the past was. But does that make it the responsibility of those living in the present to apologize for something we had no control over, and not only didn’t do, but wouldn’t do, today? I come from a long German lineage on one side of my family, and from a long English side on the other. Both sides immigrated to the U.S. after the Civil War. So, in the case of slavery, why should I apologize for something that had nothing to do with me or either of my lineages? On the other hand, does that imply that I should be responsible for apologizing for anything Hitler might have done, or for anything an English king or queen might have done against civilizations of yesterday? The bottom line is, we can only be responsible for what is today, and what we who live in today shape tomorrow to be. This business of apologizing for, and regretting, the past is ridiculous. How about I apologize for Eve’s offering the apple to Adam? That way we’ve got all the bases covered.

Cindy, at 7:50 am EDT on April 25, 2007

Cindy’s Comment

Cindy,

You hit the nail on the head! The majority in this country tends to forget that unlike your family and others that willingly migrated to the United States, Africans did not have that luxury. They were captured and brought to this country as free labor.

Cindy, and you can not tell the difference in these situations. This is why we still have race issues in the country.

Ronald, at 8:35 am EDT on April 25, 2007

You miss the point, Cindy

Cindy, you miss the point entirely. I am a white Southern conversative woman speaking here who teaches and I must admit that my very life and all the pleasures that I enjoy depend on the sacrifice and debasement of colored people in slavery times and on their continued disenfranchisement today. I fully admit to being a part of a racist Southern culture and a prejudiced American culture. As a white woman in my world, IT IS HARD NOT TO BE a part of this culture—to unwittingly and willing feed it.

The point of the article, Cindy, was that institutions like UVA did and do have something to do directly with so called past injustices—there very being, architecture, policies, and actions grow explicitly out of their inhumanity towards African Americans in the past and in the present day. Their refusal to participate in the civil rights movements means that for generations they never interrogated their injustices.

The article took pains to interview a black man whose grandfathers down the line were slaves but whose very father—we’re talking RECENTLY—endured one of the chief present-day outgrowths of white people’s disgusting practice of enslaving darker skinned people in this country: the forced and now de facto economic subjugation and separation of blacks.

What an inhumane foolish and bigoted woman you are. At least I admit and am trying before Christ to work on my racism. We are all in this country, bigots, all races too. It’s our learned subconscious bigotry that is the real maddening and sick problem.

You are like the bigot that routinely celebrates “founding fathers” and the beauty of your grandparents’ influence but when it comes to an unjust past you only choose the history that suits you.

I am a Southern white woman who lives in a place where the whites will not even let their children go to the same PROM as the blacks. Whites STILL act bigoted even when the law says its illegal and the local government does nothing to stop them. They say that bigotry is “just our prefence.” But it is the past talking in the present day. These bigots say “I don’t owe blacks anything, not even an apology” and they are the same vicious, vicious whites that make their daughters press a button on the cell phone for emergency whenever a black persons speaks to them who is not serving them (this is a true anecdote of the many racist things that white Southern mothers teach their white children to do around blacks).

And these blacks are not rappers, criminals or hoodulums. They are hardworking country folk in a rural area. But the racism is deep and imagineable, not unimagineable.

How DARE you talk like such a spoiled white bigot who thinks that you can select an allegience to some pasts and not to the ones that challenge you.

Everyday I am around my white peers who talk in passing habitually about blacks as animals and then smile at them. Blacks are so used to it that they don’t even want to be around us either. They see the hate behind our smiles and they FEEL the history. No wonder so many continue to hate us because, quite frankly, they cannot stop our hatred and what we teach our children. They know that we will turn on them mercilessly as I have seen my father turn on even the black men who worked for him when they wanted better conditions. Late in life, after seeing how my own daughter is raising her children, I felt the hand of Christ slap me. I see her teaching hate so thoroughly and I realize what I have done—I have spread the past out into today.

If America could only hear how whites in the South really talk about blacks—especially the deep South where I live. The guilt morphs to rage because most of these white families, for GENERATIONS, were involved in maintain slavery or maintain the disenfranchisement of blacks on every level possible. And they are the very ones who will celebrate the confederacy, note their lineage as you shamelessly did, and then choose which one best expresses them and never, ever admit that they actively foster racist feelings and ideas—covertly AND overtly.

Your very words and their supercilious passive aggressiveness are unjust and you are as damned as I am, and severely so, because it is people like you who are still making this country a very bigoted place by thinking that you are not participating in a present day racist culture. And people like me, I dare say. But, late in life, I’m learning.

Bea, at 9:10 am EDT on April 25, 2007

Cindy, I hear what you’re saying. But you need to realize that you have benefited from white privilege whether you like it or not. I don’t believe the key is to feel guilty, but rather to transform that into action. As a first step, start to think of the ways you’ve benefited from racism in society even if you have never ‘been racist’ yourself.

White Man, at 9:20 am EDT on April 25, 2007

Umm,

The unfortunately, Cindy, the past is a living thing. It lives on in the stories and pain passed on in families from generation to generation. It informs much of how memebers of each subsequent generation lives their life. Step out of the American context and look at the Korean families who may have female members used as “comfort women” during the Japanese occupation. What if there are offsprings from these forced encounters in these families. Stories? History is a living thing—sometimes soothing, sometimes comforting, sometimes healing and sometimes destroying possibilities for constructive social evolution.

Look around the world today, Cindy and you’ll see conflicts rooted in historical acts of great cruelity and inhumanity. And although, you and I did not personally do anything to to create or sustain the conflict, every time the U.S.A. offers aid to any party we are involved (tax dollars, our neighbor’s military children may have to put their life on the line).

If an apology soothes or brings comfort or instills or restores belief in the integrity of our system or our founding principals, it is a VERY CHEAP price to pay to set people free from the believe that nothing good can happen for you in this system because your molecules code for a dark skin pigmentation and “history” and ingrained indifference confirms these beliefs.

Tharu, at 9:35 am EDT on April 25, 2007

African American History

Cindy’s remark above is in my opinion indicative of many non African Americans. I think as an educated African American I can address her anger and again yes many are angry with our culture here in America. First we as a culture have been in a perpetual civil rights struggle for all ethnic groups who came to America after us; we came here in chains on slave ships, neither on Mayflower, nor via Ellis Island such as your German lineage. Our struggles have been on going for 400+ years yet the right to legally vote just granted with-in the last 40 via the Dr. King movement and Civil Rights acts of that period. Moreover slavery ended in 1866 yet it took America 100 years to put some teeth in that law. Slavery was an economic lifestyle that benefited many old world countries such as English Peoples, Dutch Peoples, Spanish Peoples and many other European Nations and must particular the USA. America even declined into a Civil War over this economic machine yet the monetary benefit was astronomical via industries like insurance, securities, retail etc… which brought an end to that war with-in four years and back to business as usual. African Americans have paid a price for this country and we are hungry for respect for that price, no matter how we achieve it. Apologizes really mean nothing and the average black person will tell you that however I think the real issue is acknowledgement of the atrocities of slavery and laws for the humanitarian side of humankind. When Universities such as Brown or U of V and U of A apologize they are only saying that we recognize the problems of the younger current group and yes theirs is a different reality which needs addressing.

I believe you might be off track with your anger; African Americans in slavery had no due process even though technically we were dealing with 3/5 of a real human being and the rules claimed they deserved certain rights; slave owners had complete and total domination over the fate of a slave from severe beatings to their faces and backside, limbs being removed as punishment, permanent scaring inflicted on their facial areas from torture such burnings with hot irons, tarring and feathering, to boiling and smoking them as punishment; the female slaves were raped by the white males on a regular basics and beaten to a pulp by the white females because of it. Furthermore the female owners ensured complete broken African American family connections for their own personal profit from being sold off as furthermore punishment to killing them in secret. Furthermore ownership was insured via policies from companies such as New York, Aetna, and many others, further adding to false claims for profit from having killed the slave themselves. Currently in Illinois the Insurance Dept of Illinois has mandated laws that all insurance companies release all documentation related to slavery showing who own them and what their fate was. My point here is even though it was legal ….illegal things were the normal protocol and tons of documented cases during slavery times and for many years after it was outlawed common place. This is why it ended because the illegal aspect of the lifestyle was world widely known and America was the worst offender. Illegal trading continued after Europe ruled against it. Furthermore the advent of lynching was so common after the fact because it was so common during, hence created a know cultural movement called the KKK that only after years and years of investigations from the FBI did the US government finally get a case of feeling powerless for so long from having allowed this form of illegal treatment to continue…..and did something about it. I present to you a link that is only the tip of the iceberg and a general feeling from whites (not all) for at least 400 years…and this was after slavery. http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/

http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/

Greg Harris, at 9:35 am EDT on April 25, 2007

On name calling and labeling

Dear Bea and any others who are thinking along her lines, I will not reduce myself to lashing back at you with name calling or labeling of my own. But I will defend myself against a diatribe that assumes that everyone in America, if they aren’t African-American, is bigoted and has contributed to the subjugation and enslavery of this race. For your information, no one in my family ever taught me or my siblings racial bigotry. I was brought up that all people are equal, no matter the color. We didn’t use racial epithets in our household, and we didn’t look down on people unlike us. In fact, my family joined the Civil Rights movement: When I was 13 in 1963, my family sold our “white picket” house in a white-only, upscale neighborhood in a major Midwest city to “colored” people who were part of an integration movement desperate to integrate neighborhoods like this in ways like that. Consequently, after the neighborhood learned of what my family had done, I had eggs thrown at me at the school bus stop. My “friends” quit speaking to me. No one would sit with me at lunch. People called me ugly names, including the despicable N-word with “lover” attached to it. Before we moved, someone thew black paint at our brick house and garage, and we had to have the filthy words scrawled on the garage door sandblasted. All this and, because I’d never been taught racial hatred, at 13 I couldn’t understand what it was about. We only sold our house, didn’t we? What was wrong with that? When I grew up I lived in the South for 15 years, where I volunteered for 12 of those years in education, diligently and methodically pursuing and trying to right perceived and real types of bigotry and injustices imposed upon children of color in the Deep South way that so infiltrates the education system there. And, I made a difference. I know I did. And now that I’m back where I grew up, I will not apologize for something I did not do or contribute to. Neither will I stand still while people call me names for something that, in their own hearts, they apparently not only feel guilty for, but evidently have an inexplicable need to transfer on to others. The answer to this problem is to show by your actions the means by which you “apologize” for what this country’s forefathers did because,otherwise, words alone are just so empty — and easy, compared to actually affecting change with physical and social action.

Cindy, at 10:00 am EDT on April 25, 2007

I think this may come down to a distinction between individuals (like the millions of immigrants that arrived after the Civil War) and institutions that have existed since the time in which slavery existed.

It makes a certain kind of sense for the latter to formally apologize, while the same may not hold for individuals.

Jack, at 10:00 am EDT on April 25, 2007

Don’t worry, Cindy

I think everyone is missing your point, Cindy. They are too quick to jump all over you and imply you are racist. “How about I apologize for Eve’s offering the apple to Adam? That way we’ve got all the bases covered.” So true. Tharu, I don’t see how it “sets people free” or “brings comfort” to receive an apology from someone who had nothing to do with the indescretion. That wouldn’t make me feel better at all.

Additionally, reliving the past over and over just continues the ill-will and continues to separate the races. Race will never not be an issue because people won’t let it die and move on. They want to flounder in past mistakes and keep the anger and separation alive.

Oh, and by the way, I apologize for Eve’s offering the apple. It is because of her sins that woman continue to suffer pain in childbirth. My apologies to all woman who have had children!

Hope and Faith, at 10:15 am EDT on April 25, 2007

UVA Facing Up to Role in Slavery

As an African American male and two-time alumnus of the University of Virginia who was a very active student leader, who resided on the Lawn, and who got married in University Chapel, I am ELATED that apologetic regrets have been extended for the University’s role in slavery.

When I was a student there in the mid- to late 1980s, I walked the Grounds (i.e., “campus") in a manner that some Whites perceived as African American arrongance. My strong sense of self and presence at the University was not grounded in arrogance, but in acknowledgement of — and pride in — the fact that my people (that is, people of African descent) were an integral and awe-inspiring role in the establishment and development of the University of Virginia.

Cindy, your comments are definitely in keeping with the bigoted thinking of persons like yourself who fear that actions such as those by the University of Virginia and other entities who have apologized for their roles in slavery may weaken, and evenutally, dismantle all of the “perks” you enjoy as beneficiaries of white privilege and entitlement.

African American Male UVA Alum, at 11:20 am EDT on April 25, 2007

Another smoke screen

Here we go again! I have to agree with Cindy to a point. My family migrated to America long after the Civil War was fought and if I benefited from being Caucasian, is that my fault? I have long held the belief that we as a nation would fare so much better if we put the blame on those who created the institution of slavery, not those of us who have had to live in the shadows of that institution. Remember, not one living soul today has ever been a slave, will ever be a slave, nor own one. Yes, Africans were dragged from their native lands and force to work in this one. That was tragic, then; however, I don’t see a mass migration of African-Americans back to the “MotherLand” today. I dare say that a very small minority have ever given it much thought given the environment that most African nations are facing today. Perhaps it’s time we stop putting people in “cubby holes” and we all become a nation of Americans focused on fixing racism, teen pregnancy, violence of any kind, drug abuse, homelessness, hunger, education, and the miriad of other ills plaguing our society. I, for one, am tired of living in a society that seems hellbent on self-destruction.

Martin, at 11:20 am EDT on April 25, 2007

America Today

Kudos to you Cindy and I apologize for what has happen to you and your family doing that time for selling to African Americans. Funny thing is I have a cousin who is half black and half white who feels as you feel and refuses to relate to the black culture at all because of the same experiences while growing up a child in a bi-racial family. I too have seen of late the same while buying a historical piece of property from a great aunt in which the deed had written into it that no African Americans could be sold the property…she had convinced them that she was not African American(light skinned and non curling hair) and they were European …. yet they knew. The deed clearly stated that nobody black could be the owner of the land and of course in the 21st Century that was un-enforceable.

I would like to say to you and others who read my blogs because I receive a lot of hate e-mail now because of my views on being a Black Male in America…that when attention to our culture is directed from the system…i.e.. Universities, or Government; in most cases it because social ills are so pervasive or dyer something needs to be done. A humanitarian focus from the system for the fate of young kids or grown jobless men going to jail for crimes of survival such as stealing or selling illegal substances for food or diapers should be a concern for a modern civilized culture who happens to be one of the richest in the world.

America’s jails are filled with African Americans (75%). The Black male is missing in action in mainstream America, his family and in general viewed as an unacceptable entry for leadership, trust or academic pursuits. The media has allowed us to be presented for profit gain as this and only suited for crime, sports or abusive Neanderthals incapable of assimilation to others civilized world. We are viewed thru prejudice from all who come to America and now other newer cultures want to know what our problem is.

Closure has never been granted to our past and is being repeating over and over with a new face because apologies, reparations and healing rejected. We Blacks are crying out via our music, actions and lifestyles for mercy to our kids from others and when presented with the concept “it’s always been like this for you all”…..at this point….we are ready to fight back…. and the blood, sweat and tears from our forefathers rushes to our heads. I feel for you Cindy and its families like yours historically that have helped us in our struggles world wide. If you have taken this discussion negatively ….please don’t cause I for one, did not view your views as hate, but as misplaced anger. God Bless

Greg Harris, at 11:45 am EDT on April 25, 2007

Careful with the finger-pointing

Two quick comments:

First, Jack’s right on point when he distinguishes between institutions and individuals. Statements of contrition for past actions make sense for an institution. For an individual, it only makes sense if the individual was directly responsible for the action.

Second, folks ought to be careful with the finger pointing. If we(ill-advisedly) choose to associate blame with race or gender or other ascriptive characteristics, then we run the risk that there’s someone in each group who has done something bad or wrong or embarassing. Under the implication-by-race formula it’s not a jump to say that African Americans should apologize for Marion Barry’s crimes, or Korean Americans should apologize for Cho, or women should apologize for Squeaky Fromm, or Muslims should apologize for 9/11....

Prof. Challenger, at 11:45 am EDT on April 25, 2007

Tolerance

As I read the posts this morning I realized just how far apart some Americans still are. It is amazing how quick it is that some on this post have to make assumptions and toss in their own distain toward someone that has an unpopular or perceived, politically incorrect opinion. I do believe that some of the writers here today owe Cindy an apology while we are on the subject. The reality is that black people throughout the history of the United States have suffered injustices, and racism indeed still exists. This will never stop if people as yourselves’ don’t practice a little tolerance. Making rash assumptions and tossing the “Bigot” or “Nigger” words around certainly will not change anyone’s mind or make present history better than yesteryear. If you don’t like injustice, then turn it around and embrace integrity yourself! I believe that was the point of the apology from the University of Virginia.

Apologies are made to convey a person/persons need to say I/we recognize that injustices were done and we wish express our regrets and we wish that events had been different. We can’t ask forgiveness to those who are no longer with us, but we can aspire to never follow that pathway again and honor African-Americans as a valuable part of our society.

Reality is …we may only move forward. “Actions speak louder than words.” Now it is up to the University of Virginia to ‘walk the talk’.

billa, at 1:20 pm EDT on April 25, 2007

“How DARE you talk like such a spoiled white bigot who thinks that you can select an allegience to some pasts and not to the ones that challenge you.”

Good lord. You don’t even know who she is, or what her background is, racial or otherwise.

JBM, at 2:50 pm EDT on April 25, 2007

Two comments. First, the argument that white people alive today whose ancesters had nothing to do with slavery somehow benefit from the labor of slaves 140 plus years after slavery was abolished is so absurd it is not funny. If the argument is that blacks helped build the infrastructure of the present economy, well so did every group that came here, and blacks alive today benefit from it as well. It is like arguing that trees provide the air and we all breath it, but it is not the only source of oxygen, and we all contribute the carbon dioxide the trees need to thrive. Maybe we should apologize to the trees.

Having said that I agree with the Institution vs. Individual sentiment expressed earlier. But lets remember that the institutional apology is finally just a gesture. It is what individuals do on a daily basis that is more important.

Bob, at 5:45 pm EDT on April 25, 2007

Like I said before: when it comes to embracing some aspects of America’s history, a lot of white people and some blacks feel quite comfortable seeing a direct link between the past and the present. But when it comes to slavery people like Cindy and JBM (by implication because he and others defend her view) these same people refuse to see how our culture (which is us) grew out of slavery and continues to do so.

I critiqued Cindy’s views. Why in God’s name would anyone assume that I know her based on her post. But some white people will CHANGE THE SUBJECT when racism is talked about or BLAME OTHERS and never, ever acknowledge how they participate in racism in small ways or even big ways. That is part of the problem.

To me, Cindy’s views demonstrated the kind of bigotry that continues to plague us all.

It is high time that whites and blacks stop being afraid of racism and being racist and start doing something about these feelings within us. As I said: We are all racist in this country, especially on underrecognized subconscious levels.

Also, I live and work in the South—deep South and I know this culture extremely well and I know so many of the whites constant justification for not working towards an anti-racist state of mind and being. A lot of their justifications BEGIN with the words, “It’s not my problem; I was around during slavery"...

Bea, at 5:50 pm EDT on April 25, 2007

When is the Past just the Past

Clear the air. How many blacks admitted to UVA as compared with the population served?

Begin to ask questions on how to overcome the denial of the right of Blacks to an education — the UVA apology was for the school, not for Cindy or any other individual.

Now what do they plan to do to back up the apology to make restitution?

Quizzical, at 6:25 pm EDT on April 25, 2007

Ducking the rotten eggs...

Some of the comments here are not appropriate for a civil discussion of the matter. I was horrified to read seemingly intelligent responses rampant with slurs, insults and wholly unfounded accusations.

There is no single right interpretation of what should be done, yet so many commenters speak as if their experiences are sufficient to apply to an entire nation. Please, understand that while you might be right, other people might not be “wrong.” He/she may be working from a different set of premises.

The only wrong comments are those that sling baseless, spiteful epithets and those that tout closed-minded reasoning as truth.

Apalled, at 9:25 pm EDT on April 25, 2007

Ending racism

Besides talking about racism, Bea, please share with us the everyday actions — not words and discourse, but ACTIONS — you have taken, and continue to take, to eliminate racism and affect change in this society.

Cindy, at 10:40 pm EDT on April 25, 2007

Cindy, regardless of what other may write I agree with you. My parents emigrated from Germany to the States after World War II. I was born and raised in the States, and I have never understood why I should apologize for historical situations that happened decades before I was born never mind before my parents arrived. I would suggest that what we need to do is learn from that past and move on, not constantly look backward.

On racists / bigotry comments, for the past 10 years I have been living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where slavery was outlawed in 1967, that’s right 1967 not 1867. Many of those “former” slaves are still alive and are living here. Do you think the local Emiratis would even think to apologize for slavery, not a chance! And why, because many think that unless you are an Arab or come from a particular ruling tribe, you are a slave!

Many of my fellow co-workers (all educated, many coming from Asia), make racists comments about other people. The Indians will make racists remarks about the Pakistanis, or Filipinos, or Sri Lankans, (which will be returned by the Pakistanis, Filipinos, Sri Lankans.) British Expats will make racists remarks concerning anyone who is not a white skinned Brit. Arabs make racists comments about Asians, Brits, American, or anyone who is not an Arab. The point is racism is not unique to the States; it seems to be a human condition. All we as individuals can do is try to improve ourselves and if we have children teach them to accept other peoples as individuals not as a labeled group.

Julia of Dubai, Ass’t Dean Student Life at George Mason University — RAK Campus, at 8:00 am EDT on April 26, 2007

History

Yes Julia you are making the case and point…Slavery is as old as mankind and goes back to BC times for Greeks, Africans, Eastern & Central Europeans, Native Americans, Asians and even those newly developed North African 2nd & 3rd world nations such as United Arab Emirates which have because of oil become mega rich. However, America has been a 1st world nation for 200 years minimum and we African Americans in spite of people like yourself who recent our struggles or even our long history of fighting for others dignity will continue to seek the higher road for all of mankind. Trying to justify abuse to human beings simply because…somebody needs to be abused is barbaric and as we become closer and closer as a modern civilized culture because of computers more and more emphasis needs to be directed towards humanities with regards to correcting mankind’s short comings. People can even justify slavery with religion, wars, political social systems or out right… ‘might makes right’ therefore I should rule over you with such.

I would hope that recognizing an error of centuries towards a continent of people would not invite angry replies from individuals who in truth only are outsiders looking in. Moreover it makes no difference if one culture was not documented as part taking directly in slavery because it affected worldwide economies, social ideals and mankind as a whole. I have noticed a great deal of people who happen to be from non-African lineage maintaining animosities towards those who do and mind you we are spread over world wide because of slavery. That animosity as I pointed out to Cindy is just mis-placed aggression towards one of the oldest, most documented known cultures that has historically been apart of every positive human interaction with all. Today with all the modern weaponry at the finger tip of leaders; an introspective on past thinking that we as civilized human beings can do should serve to catapult us towards not thinking along the lines which you claim is the norm in your country…..extreme thinking about others will lead to a 3rd world war…but maybe we are headed in that direction….yes??

Greg Harris, at 9:15 am EDT on April 26, 2007

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Assistant Director for Native American Student Affairs
NC State University

Join the Pack! A community with nearly 8,000 faculty and staff, and 30,000 students. NC State is one of the largest employers ... see job

American Literature: African & Multicultural, Assistant Professor
Florida Gulf Coast University

FGCU, a member of the State University System of Florida, is a comprehensive university created to address the educational ... see job

Associate Professor of Chicano Studies
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

The University of Minnesota is a premier employer and a talent magnet attracting leading faculty and staff from around the ... see job

615 Afrs — African American History
California State University, Long Beach

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LONG BEACH COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS DEPARTMENT OF AFRICANA STUDIES Assistant Professor ... see job

Post Doctoral Research Associate
Princeton University

Position Summary: The Center for African American Studies at Princeton supports teaching and research about ... see job

Visiting Assistant Professor, Japanese Language and Literature/Film
Oberlin College

The East Asian Studies Program at Oberlin College seeks a full-time, one-semester, non-continuing faculty position in the ... see job

Vis Professor
Princeton University

Position Summary: The Center for African American Studies at Princeton supports teaching and research about ... see job

Assistant Professor of Jewish Literature
University of Colorado

Posting Description: The Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Program in ... see job

Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies & Chicano Studies
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities