I am taking back what I said earlier about how an official apology for slavery wouldn’t mean much.
That was my reaction last year, when Rep. Tony P. Hall (D-Ohio) first proposed the idea. I didn’t think much of it then. What, I asked, will it change? Whom, if anyone, can it help? How long should I hold my breath before the Page family finally receives my freed great-great-granddaddy’s promised 40 acres and a mule?
But I have reconsidered. I have changed my mind. Yes, I even apologize.
I apparently was wrong when I said such an apology wouldn’t mean much. Judging by the hostile reactions to President Clinton’s recent expression of “regret” for America’s role in slavery, it must mean a lot more than I thought it did.
“Going back to the time before we were even a nation, European-Americans received the fruits of the slave trade,” Clinton said while visiting Uganda at the outset of his 12-day Africa visit, “and we were wrong in that.”
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As statements go, that one was about as safe and factually accurate as any could be. He didn’t even apologize. Not quite. But judging by the fallout on some radio talk shows, you might think the president not only had apologized but called for reparations.
“I didn’t own any slaves, why do I need to apologize?,” said one caller, predictably.
“What about all those African chiefs who sold their own people into slavery? Why don’t they apologize?”
And so on. Rep. Hall, who is white, has said he had no idea the well-meaning gesture would be greeted with such hostility. That’s what he gets for underestimating the power of historical denial.
He underestimated the vigor with which many would try to divert the issue to whether their own families owned slaves or not, as if whites did not benefit from the system of white supremacy whether they owned slaves or not.
He underestimated the quickness with which white Americans would try to shift blame to African chiefs, as if the mere fact that slaves were available obliged Americans to buy.
He underestimated the need many Americans feel to simply bury the nation’s shameful past, as if the past does not continue to haunt the nation’s present and its future.
Speaking to reporters over breakfast two days after Clinton’s remarks, Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, the House Republican whip, sounded like he might have called one of those radio talk shows. He went ballistic.
“Here’s a flower child with gray hairs doing exactly what he did back in the ’60s,” DeLay said. “He’s apologizing for the actions of the United States. It just offends me that the president of the United States is, directly or indirectly, attacking his own country in a foreign land. It just amazes me.”
Oh? What about the unwritten rule that the president not be attacked at home while he is representing the country abroad? Patriotism, in this case, was the feeble defense of an angry man.
Which is what I find so intriguing. If an apology for slavery is such a little deal, why so much anger?
Like others, DeLay was quick to point out that he opposes slavery. Good for him. So, presumably, do all the other anti-apology protesters. Why, then, such opposition to the president’s expression of regret for the horrendous institution? In recent years Germany’s government has apologized for the Holocaust, Britain’s government has apologized for the Irish potato famine and Japan has apologized for enslaving Korean women during wartime. Why, then, is it so horrendous for Clinton to express regret over slavery?
Although you wouldn’t guess it from some of the reactions to Clinton’s speech on slavery, there was more to the president’s Africa tour than apologies. His central mission was to build trade and trust. Africa has about 700 million potential consumers of American products, but first the continent’s many republics must be stabilized, both politically and economically.
That’s a long and complicated process. It calls for skillful applications of diplomatic carrots and sticks to encourage democratic rule and free markets without imitating the colonialists or Cold War neocolonialists of the past.
After centuries of abuse, exploitation and benign neglect, Clinton quite properly sees that America needs to build trust among Africans.
So, yes, I am reconsidering my earlier thoughts on that slavery apology. It must be a big deal, or there wouldn’t be such vigorous opposition to it.