So because you choose to take a purely intellectual perspective, the  
emotional wounds of it don't matter? Is that kind of like you  
deciding for black America what they should and should not feel about  
their own history? Do we tell Native Americans they should just get  
over it, too? Is that too many steps from a type of PC, telling  
people what is allowed and what is not? I suspect for people whose  
families experienced these things, it is not an intellectual  
exercise. It's not for me, knowing as a white southerner what my own  
ancestors went through during the Civil War. Yes, I know, nothing  
compared to what slaves in America endured, or Native Americans,  
true, but still to have them hungry, homeless, burned out, Union  
soldiers threatening to drag an old man from his death bed and hang  
him because the family left one candle burning by his bedside and  
they saw it as a sign for snipers, is that right? Can one not be  
angry about that? And people now telling me the war was 140 years  
ago, get over it, well, it's not for them to say. To have my  
ancestors stereotyped as racist dim-wits who deserve whatever  
happened to them and we now should just shut up, forget about it, and  
deal with whatever jokes and snide remarks others make about them,  
sorry, it's not an intellectual exercise to me, either. Beyond the  
books and court records and analyses were real people. They left  
family behind, black and white and red. That is not an abstraction.  
Perhaps we are dealing with two perspectives here- the intellectual,  
and the personal. Perhaps the personal says "can you simply say what  
you never have said, 'I'm sorry'?" while the intellectual says " it's  
history, we study it, move on." Never the twain shall meet?

2 more cents

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Jan 19, 2007, at 11:15 AM, Tom Apple wrote:

> On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:40:31 -0500, Sunshine49 wrote
>> In a relationship, a person who has
>> been wronged needs that sense of acknowledgment and validation of
>> the  wrongs done to them, even if it is decades later. It's stupid
>> for an  abuser to say oh, I knocked your teeth out 30 years ago,
>> it's over  and done, why don't you just get over it?
>
> The difference in your analogy is that the abuser is still present.  
> It's a
> lot different if the person actually responsible for an injustice  
> is present
> vice a mere descendant who had no control or involvement in the  
> original
> offense.
>
>> How would you feel if it was your
>> great- great  grandfather's brothers, two little boys aged 8 and 11,
>> who were sold  away from a farm in Amelia County? Ask yourselves how
>> your gr-gr-gr-  grandmother must have felt, to have her children
>> torn away from her,  probably never to be seen again? I think you'd
>> be pretty resentful.
>
> You may be resentful, but the descendants are not culpable for the  
> original
> offense. So they should apologize for something they did not do on the
> pretense it is to make someone else feel good? That makes no sense.
>
> The purpose of an apology/confession is to seek forgiveness. You  
> truly cannot
> apologize on behalf of someone else if the original perpetrator  
> does not seek
> forgiveness. It's meaningless and all show.
>
> A person can be bitter or resentful about injustices done to their  
> ancestry
> all they want, but it gets them nowhere. It hasn't really served  
> the people
> in Northern Ireland very well, has it?
>
> To judge the actions of the past according to our present-day  
> morals and
> beliefs is called presentism. Presentism is not an objective lens  
> through
> which to view and analyze history.
>
> For example: it amazes me when some people try to denigrate the  
> efforts of
> our Founding Fathers by dismssing them as "rich, slave-owning,  
> white men."
>
> I would be curious to know how many cultures in the 18th century  
> (numbering
> in at least the thousands) did not practice some sort of involuntary
> servitude. I believe you would be hard pressed to find any.
>
> We can be passionate about studying history, but we should not be  
> passionate
> in our analysis of it.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Tom Apple
>
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