Where the Past Is Loudly Present

From Sea to Shining Sea ^ | 3/27/08 | Purple Mountains

[PurpleMountains]

Yesterday the Florida legislature unanimously passed a resolution that apologized to African-Americans for slavery. While I do not object to that, I must confess that I feel absolutely no more guilt for the practice of slavery by people 150 years ago than I do for their burning of witches in Colonial times. Since I am the product of Italian and British immigrants who settled in New England, it is also very unlikely that any of my actual ancestors ever practiced this abominable custom, anyway.

What I am, though, is proud that my ancestors in the United States and in Great Britain were the first civilizations ever in recorded history voluntarily to outlaw slavery

[GOPJ]

Good point - let's start a movement to apologize for witch burnings...

Slavery was wrong - and my family fought on the Union side in the Civil War...

do I get an official "thanks"?

[GOPJ]

And another part of my family fought for the South...

[PzLdr]

My family [Portuguese on one side, Italian on the other] didn't arrive in the U.S until the beginning of the 20th century. We never killed an Indian, and we never owned a slave. We weren't handled life on a silver platter, either.

In short, my family is like most others in this country. No apologies are due, either. As I recall, the end of slavery in the U.S was accomplished by a great expenditure of national treasure, and [largely] Caucasian blood.

And you can take it to the bank that the apologies in question will be used to push the ‘reparations’ agenda even further.