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I think there should be an apology, even though it's only symbolic. It would essentially say that the US government was regrettably complicit in allowing the evil of slavery.

Hmm. I don't know about this. I have real problems with the notion of accepting symbolism over substance.

An expression of sympathy by an individual (even a President) would be OK by me. But only the guilty need to apologize for their actions. For others to do so in their stead is both insulting and unsatisfying.

Admitting the reality of the past--as in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's admission of a former government's despicable treatment of the Irish--is one thing. That is useful; agreement on basic facts is a requirement for common understanding and action.

But apologizing for something not a single one of us did? In what possible sense is that useful? What is the utility of "feel-good" to people who are long dead? As for those of us who are alive and fully responsible for our own lives--what need have we for reparations, symbolic or otherwise, for wrongs never done to us?

The evil of slavery is not an issue, nor has it been for a very long time. If the U.S. government was "complicit," it expiated that guilt long ago. (Incidentally, where are the calls for apologies from the leaders of current African nations whose ancestors did the selling of their neighbors?)

If there is existing wrong, right it with something real. If not, then let us remember the wrongs that have happened but otherwise get on with our lives without being "symbolically" guilt-tripped into paying blood money we don't owe.

what need have we for reparations

without being "symbolically" guilt-tripped into paying blood money we don't owe.

I don't recall advocating paying reparations or blood money.

I spent enough time in the Washington, D.C. area to observe that guilt is now invariably associated with cash. When "we the people" were informed that we were guilty of the segregation of blacks, we were forced to pay for the busing schemes of judges. When told that we were guilty of not caring enough about our society's less fortunate, we were forced to pay for a huge welfare system. When told that we are guilty of "discrimination" against those with "different lifestyles," we get soaked for AIDS money. When told that "our government" (deftly shifting the blame from specific individuals) had performed radiation experiments on unsuspecting citizens in the 1940s, the families of those experimented on got a tax-funded payoff from the Department of Energy's free-spending Hazel O'Leary.

On virtually every weekend during three-quarters of the year, you will see news footage of some group--right, left, you name it--on the Mall, protesting. They don't go there merely to express an opinion, however. They go to Washington because, as Willie Sutton said of banks, "That's where the money is."

If you take money from me by threatening to restrain me against my will or otherwise harm me, that's called extortion. If the government does it, that's called taxation. The difference is that where you don't have the legal power to take my resources against my will, the government (by definition) does. And that figures into this discussion because people now know how to work that system. All they need to do to get bucks for their cause is to convince those who hold the purse strings to legally extract that cash through the power of government coercion from those who have it. But some pretext is needed... and that's where public "apologies" for "guilt" are employed. If I can convince enough politicians that I'm a member of some group that people should feel guilty for oppressing, if I can manipulate their emotions and the emotions of their constituents, then I can get money. What politician these days wants to look "uncaring?"

So Washington is where guilt becomes gilt.

I thus see "reparations" and "blood money" as entirely appropriate words to describe such objectively recorded events as public apologies on behalf of the dead to the dead, which always seem to be followed by payouts to "victims" who have not personally suffered the slings and arrows in question.

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