Posted on 05/01/2006 9:11:01 AM PDT by Crackingham
On a weekend pilgrimage to this town that was once the center of massive resistance to desegregation, Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) said he believes a congressional resolution expressing remorse for slavery would be a "powerful, worthy" idea.
Allen, who is running for reelection while considering a 2008 presidential bid, was in Farmville over the weekend as part of a racial reconciliation trip organized by the bipartisan Faith and Politics Institute. Also participating in the pilgrimage was Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a leader in the civil rights movement. Allen pledged to work with Lewis to build support among colleagues and the public for the resolution.
.......
Allen's comments were notable because some black leaders and political opponents have long accused him of racial insensitivities. Before he ran for governor in 1993, he kept a Confederate flag in a cabin near his Charlottesville home, part of a collection of flags, he has said. He once displayed a noose in his law office, which he said was part of a homage to the West. And he stirred controversy as governor by issuing a proclamation noting the South's celebration of Confederate History Month in April, without mentioning slavery.
Allen said he has gotten a lesson in the importance of symbols, including the Confederate flag. "I have learned over time what that flag means," he said. "To me, it didn't mean what it means to some people. . . . I looked at it more as anti-establishment, renegade, rebelliousness. But I have learned . . . when you look at how that flag has been appropriated by hate groups. I don't ever want to hurt people or in any way make them feel bad about one thing or another."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The left must be concerned, they are starting their 'twisting' of news against Allen.
Oh great, an institution (Congress) that didn't hold slaves apologizing on behalf of long-dead people who did hold slaves to people who were never slaves during their lives.
How helpful.
Maybe next, Congress can move on to less important issues, like a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, or real border control, etc.
To quote Anthony Cumia, "Waddle doodle, I apologize! Bone dry!"
Allen, as usual, will pander.
Didn't Bill Clinton already do that during his term? Doesn't Senator Allen have anything else to do?
What about Robert KKK Byrd??
My President Allen is Geena Davis.
Please don't do this. You're a Republican. That means you are one of the good guys; your party fought slavery, and opposed Jim Crow all during the bad old days.
This is a teaching opportunity, to educate a generation that doesn't, thank God, really remember the bad old days, to remind them that while the Democrats still engage in ethnic politics and still pander to racial stereotypes, the Republicans continue to believe in color-blind citizenship. We are right where we have always been.
So for God's sake, don't apologize. Educate.
YOU are dang lucky that your ancestors were brought to the U.S. to be slaves hundreds of years ago. For one thing, it was your black brothers in Africa that sold your great great great great great great great grandparents to the white Europeans who brought you to the United States, before there even was a United States. There were no slave ships in the time after the U.S. Revolutionary War. All slave ships predate the U.S..
And have you looked at Africa lately? Would you really want to live there? By all means, if past slavery makes it so impossible for you to live in this country, by all means leave. Here's what you get to look forward to in your great home called Africa; disease, famine, rampant ethnic cleansing, and more. If the muslims aren't trying to kill you there because you aren't muslim, then some tribal hundreds year old conflict is raging trying to kill you. And if not that, you'll die of hunger, or one of hundreds of rampant diseases, a large animal or any number of snakes that go where they please, or a lack of any kind of decent sanitation in most of the continent. You should thank your lucky stars your ancestors were brought here to be slaves, even though slavery was and is dead wrong and just about the worst thing one human can do to another. But bottom line, if there was no slavery, it's doubtful that even half of the blacks in the U.S. who did not immigrate here the past hundred years would even be alive, as it's quite a long shot that all those generations of their ancestors the past 300+ years would have actually survived in Africa to have had them or their parents, etc so on.
That's reality. Not popular. Not pretty. But reality. Congress has no business wasting time on an apology being made for mistakes made for people dead for over 100 years. Especially since the people who made the mistakes weren't even Americans. The people who made the initial mistakes, well their ancestors mostly live in Europe, in Spain, England, and France. Congress should be worrying about the war and rampant illegal flow across our borders which is a perfect cover for terrorist incursions across our border with nuclear or biological weapons, and certainly not wasting any time on apologies for things that the United States had no part in starting. What a waste of time. I'm disappointed Senator Allen would even consider it. All this P.C. warm fuzzy crap in the face of sheer stupidity is really getting tiresome.
Holy mackeral! I've been leaning toward Allen, in part because his dad was one whale of a football coach (hated him, of course because I was a rabid Cowboy fan). I thought some of George Allen's persistence and heart might have rubbed off.
But I'm with you; we've had all the fake apologies that are needed.
I wonder where Allen's protesting today...
Perhaps apologizing the enslavement to rising taxes we all pay to pay for illegals and their childen would be more appropriate.
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