Apologize for slavery?

Facing up to the living past

For reasons that would be interesting to explore, gestures of collective repentance have recently become quite popular. In 1994, the pope offered an apology for past sins committed by the church against non-Catholics. In the summer of 1995, the Southern Baptists, who number over 15 million, voted to express a resolution of repentance which read in part, "We lament and repudiate historic acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest." British Prime Minister Tony Blair has apologized for England's indifference to the plight of the Irish during the Potato Famine, and in January the Canadian government formally apologized for its historic mistreatment of indigenous peoples. Last year, President Bill Clinton apologized on behalf of We the People to the African-Americans who were the unwitting subjects in the infamous Tuskegee study on syphilis, and seriously considered the possibility of apologizing for slavery in general. The president subsequently called for a "national conversation" about race, and appointed a commission to promote such a conversation.

Reactions to Clinton's initial proposed mea culpa varied. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he probably would not favor an official apology, "because I think we should be looking to the future, talking about things we need to do to work together." Ward Connerly, an African-American entrepreneur, regent of the University of California, and architect of the California anti-affirmative action referendum, Proposition 209, pronounced this verdict on the idea: "Apologizing for slavery is probably one of the dumbest things anyone could do." Offering a more muted criticism, the Reverend Jesse Jackson remarked that an apology would have "no substantive value." He then went on to warn that such gestures could "divert attention away from our ability to, in fact, close the gap [between whites and African-Americans] with real structure and investment." On the other hand, the civil rights leader Julian Bond maintained that an apology for slavery would be a good and important symbolic gesture. And the recent release of Steven Speilberg's Amistad has made the history and moral legacy of slavery a vibrant issue yet again.

Last summer, in between Little League baseball games in a largely white Minnesota town, I did some informal polling of my own. Though none of the people I talked to took the president's proposed apology to be an urgent matter, about half expressed mild support for the idea. Others scoffed at repenting for what they took to be ancient history. The wife of a professor commented, "Why should I apologize for something done to blacks more than a hundred years ago?" A fair question which might be restated: "Why should I apologize for a crime that I had nothing to do with?" Or more to the point, "By what authority can I apologize for someone else's actions?" It would, after all, be hubristic for me to think that I could repent for a mugging in which I did not participate. Likewise, it would be absurd to pretend that I could repent for slaveholders and traders who themselves refused to repent.

As a professor of philosophy, over the years I have encountered many white students who accurately or paranoically believe that they are constantly being asked to feel guilty and repent for racist institutions and actions in which they themselves had no hand. When it comes to race and repentance, these students are of the Aristotelian opinion that we should be praised or blamed only for our own voluntary actions. Here it should be observed that, oddly enough, many of them feel no qualms about taking pride in the accomplishments of the various communities with which they identify, such as their college, fellow countrymen, townsfolk, church brethren, or for that matter, members of their local major league baseball team. And yet, the logic of their claim that responsibility only extends as far as one's own free will would seem to militate against the idea of any form of ego-enhancement derived from the accomplishments of others.

This minor inconsistency aside, many who sneer or snarl at the suggestion of apologizing for deeds from the deep past need to consider the possibility that we may bear a moral connection to actions that we did not ourselves commit. In this regard, it would be useful to distinguish between actions that one neither commits nor profits from and actions not committed but profited from. Suppose, for example, that unbeknownst to me, a friend of mine robs a bank and makes off with $7 million. Clearly, I am neither responsible for the robbery nor am I in a position to apologize for it. However, if after telling me about the theft, I accept a million dollars of the stolen loot, then I am no longer innocent of the robbery, despite the fact that I had nothing at all do to with the heist. It could, I think, be argued that white people have profited from our racist past and thus, relative to slavery, we are more akin to receivers of stolen goods than we are to innocent bystanders who just happen to bear a physical likeness to slave owners.

No doubt some will reply that they are unaware of drawing any benefits from slavery and racism. This lack of awareness would be exculpatory if in fact slavery and discrimination did not serve the interests of whites. However, if ignorance of being privileged is an ignorance we ourselves are responsible for producing, then we become morally reproachable receivers of stolen goods. And to be psychologically realistic, whites have a strong investment in blinking at their assessment of the broad effects of racism. To return to my earlier example, let us assume that when I accepted the gift of a million dollars, I had no reason to think that the money had been stolen, but that years later I came to understand that the funds upon which I had built a comfortable and respectable life had been pilfered from the accounts of your great-grandparents. Would the fact that many years had gone by cover the sin to such a degree that I would not bear any, responsibility to the descendants of my great-grandparents victims who, thanks to my ancestors, now led a distinctively unprivileged existence?

Individuals who benefit from a crime are mistaken in thinking that they have nothing to do with the crime. If responsibility does not extend from the robber baron to his children, then so long as the perpetrator of a crime can escape indictment by his immediate victim when he is alive, then the material benefits of his wrongdoing can be passed along with impunity to future generations.

Once again, it is essential to distinguish between cases in which one generation is entirely innocent of a transgression committed by an earlier generation, and those in which the sins of the father continue to bear fruits of advantage for his descendants. Although I am not sure that a presidential apology would have the healing effects that some anticipate, I do know that white Americans have profited from slavery and discrimination. In a competitive society we have always had a leg up on African-Americans, whether it be in hunting for a job, loan, house, or advancement in a corporate firm. If you do not believe me on the last count then consider the Texaco scandal in 1996 where unsuspecting white corporate executives were caught on tape espousing racist sentiments. Or consider a story that a friend shared with me. My friend, who is about thirty-five, recently returned to his hometown in a Detroit suburb for a class reunion at his richly integrated public high school. After the reunion, four of his old school chums persuaded him to go out and play a few golf holes. All were corporate executives and registered Democrats. And yet when the issue of race came up, all of them swore that they would never "take the risk" of hiring an African-American to fill a leadership role in their respective companies. In other words, any white applicants who sought employment in one of their firms would have a decisive advantage over all African-American applicants.

I was not involved in the civil rights struggle of the sixties. While I have huffed and puffed and shaken my head about racial injustice, I have made no significant sacrifices for the cause of racial justice. I have no special authority to preach on the matter, and yet I have lived long enough to recognize by whose sweat and on whose back this country has been built and why. Because of slavery and discrimination, African-Americans have provided an endless supply of cheap labor. They still work the fields, wash white babies and white octogenarians, shake drinks in country clubs, and mop floors in the classrooms in which white folks debate about race. It was no mistake that a black woman closed my dead father's eyes. It was no accident that a black woman was there when my child first opened his blue eyes. As a result of institutionalized racism, African-Americans have been cornered into doing more than their fair share of protecting, building, and preserving this land. For that reason, I suggest that even white Americans who have cursed racism have unwillingly and perhaps unwittingly benefited from it. Thus, whites are in no position to slough off the call for an apology by insisting that they have no connection to slavery.

The Hebrew Scriptures ring with intimations that blessings and blandishments can be passed on from generation to generation. For one of myriad examples, the children of Abraham are blessed because of Abraham's faith. On the other side of the ledger, there was clearly a point in time when the Israelites believed that the sins of the father would be punishable unto the fourth generation. The revolutionary prophet Ezekiel inveighs against the notion of cross-generational responsibility. Attempting to focus his people's attention on their individual actions, Ezekiel proclaims that if a man has a son "who has seen all the sins that his father has done, considers and does not do likewise...he shall not die from his father's sin" (Ezekiel: 18:14-17). When we refuse to acknowledge the harm that our community has inflicted upon others, when we the unoppressed refuse to acknowledge that, at least for a time, oppression benefits those who are not forced to walk on the other side of the street, then we fail to turn away from the sin of oppression. By turning a blind eye, the sins of the father become the sins of the more passive son. By refusing to acknowledge who has been doing what for the last four hundred years, we fail to turn away from the grievous sins of our forefathers.

Some have argued that the president should not offer an apology for slavery because such an apology would have either no impact or a negative effect. Those who worry about the negative impact of a mea culpa are afraid that a proclamation of regret might distract us from the task of closing the divide in opportunities that exists today between African-Americans and whites. Some fear that African-Americans will clutch onto the prize of an apology and become less persistent in their demands for initiatives intended to redress the destruction wrought by slavery and racism.

I suspect that an apology for slavery would resonate in many different ways in the African-American community. While I would be unwilling to predict the political effects of a statement of regret, there is, I think, little reason to worry about people being lulled to sleep by it. Either way, if the president is still considering offering such a gesture, he ought not to put too much weight on the potential impact of the apology.

If acts of collective repentance make any sense at all it is on the basis of their kinship to individual expressions of repentance. When an individual repents, he acknowledges culpability and regret for harms that he has visited upon someone else. In the Judeo-Christian tradition it is believed that once an apology is offered, it is the moral responsibility of the person transgressed against to decide whether or not to accept that apology. (Apropos of this point, legal scholar Patricia Williams offered a powerful argument to the conclusion that if an apology is tendered, blacks ought to politely refuse to accept it [The Nation, July 14, 1997].) Nowhere in either the Hebrew Scriptures or the New Testament is there counsel to the effect that asking for forgiveness is conditioned on our expression of repentance falling on welcoming ears.

Gordon Marino is associate professor of philosophy and director of the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library at Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.