Do I need to be sorry for slavery too?

Question

Half my family was back in Sicily and Italy in the slave times, the other half was DIRT POOR. How come people always say America needs to say sorry for slavery? (not sayin all black people say this, just a few)

I'm glad yall gave the answer I agreed with.

Answer 1

Can I state a comment and can you tell me if I'm justified by this.

Why isn't America guilty of slavery? If the people running every form of government can pass a law to end it or make it illegal in 1865, why didn't the same people in power do it over 200 years earlier. Surely they had power to start it they have the same power to end it. If the president can end racial segregation in 1965 and give blacks the right to vote. Why didn't the president do that when slavery was abolished in 1865.

Was not the people in power allowing this to happen? 13 of 16 of this nations founding father where right along with them owning slaves. That's like telling a 2 years it wrong to hit then let him go around hitting people. See the government and the ones in power allowed this to happen. So they to are guilty and the country will be judge for the seed it sowed.

Just because a Nation committees a crime does not mean it goes away because it happen long ago. It just so happens that the people came in the name as white instead of Americans.

Like Egypt did Israel not only did Israel take all the wealth of their labors but ALL the wealth of Egypt. All nation in history have reap or will reap what it has sowed. All because of the decision of one King. Then hundreds of years latter the Egyptian enemies ruled over them one after another. According to the prophecy of Eypts sins.

Answer 2

I'm Sicilian too, so I'm sure we share some sort of cultural identity in that sense.

Like you, my ancestors weren't here at the time of slavery. So I don't feel any familial responsibility or guilt.

However, I understand that slavery is a factor that has contributed to the current racial climate in this country, and I'm sincerely sorry that it happened.

Being sorry that something happened doesn't imply taking responsibility. It's easy to brush that whole era aside because it was so long ago, but remember-- the age of civil rights was only 40 years ago. Two generations. The old wounds are still there. It's best not to be offended by people who want some semblance of remorse for slavery. They are not the immediate descendants of immigrants, like you or I. They've been here for generations, knowing that their ancestors had no choice but to come here. I wouldn't know, but I'm sure that would contribute to a very different cultural inheritance than that of the descendants of poor Italian immigrants.

Answer 3

Are you saying America SHOULDN'T be sorry for slavery?

Let's be clear about what it means to "say America needs to say sorry for slavery". It does not mean that you need to say "Slavery was my fault, I apologize." It means you should agree that it was wrong and that you continue to benefit from its legacies as a white person.

Many of us, regardless of our own racial identity, do think America needs to resolve some of the legacies of slavery. We want racial equality, and that will never happen as long as white people go around thinking "its not my problem". If you're a white American, you need to realize that being white gives you a wide range of social privileges. Slavery is part of where that comes from, but so are all the other racist policies and practices that have gone on since then.

Italians (and many other immigrant groups) were quite oppressed in America at one time, but things have changed. Italians as a group became "white" over time, they were not always seen that way. African-Americans have not been so fortunate. That's not their fault, at least not entirely.

I too am from an extremely poor, white immigrant background. One of the main reasons I am a middle class person today is the GI bill, which allowed my grandparents to buy a home in the suburbs, at a time when there was blatant racial discrimination in the housing market. In other words, my family (and millions of others) benefited very much economically from racism even though it wasn't their choice.

Only if you take the time to think about and learn about the ways that you have benefited from racism can you claim to be anti-racist.

Answer 4

I say sorry by not being racist against them, not benefiting from deceiving or enslaving them, and downloading some of their music (for free) from the internet....other than that, I don't kiss anyone's ayss

My family, like some of you people, was either in Sicily or Austria/Poland at the time of slavery by the WASPs, and they didn't try to deny any of them their civil liberties in the early days....I don't benefit from the legacy of slavery either, I get my money for college from the GI bill from when I was in the military....So I don't wanna hear that I owe anyone anything, especially for what some other people did

Answer 5

Anyone with compassion and a heart is going to feel the pain. When 9/11 happened - I was fortunate not to know anyone who died, but I still cried when I saw the dead bodies of hard-working innocent people. I am not Jewish - but it hurts my heart to think/read/hear about concentration camps and the horrible way Jewish people were treated. I had nothing to do with all that but I still feel bad. It's about compassion.

Even though it was years and years ago, it still breaks my heart to think how poorly black people were treated. My grandmother and grandfather were not slaves - however they were belittled by whites and had to "get on the back of the bus" and what not.

I don't think anyone should "say sorry" for it - however they should have a heart because that was a horrible thing to have happened.

Answer 6

The only people that needs to apoligize for slavery are the slave owners, slave traders, and the people at the time that allowed the slavery. You, like most of the people alive to day had nothing to do with it and have no reason to apoligize.

Answer 7

count how many of your family were stolen from italy and sold like cows to work on land for free and beaten if your family didn't want to do it just make white people rich and was your great great great grandmother raped impregnated and then her child seperated from her and sold to another platation owner never to be seen again. If not shut up. If you are from Italy and you know from which city and what your background is aren't you the lucky one because most black people don't and that is what we are angry about. You don't ever waste a second of your time being sorry about slavery because you are to stupid to understand what the implications were and are.

Answer 8

America as a nation needs to apologize (if it hasn't already). You have the bad luck/good luck to be a part of that nation. You have to take the bad with the good. You are benefitting today from all the suffering the pioneers went through - and from all the labour the slaves did. That's the good - for you. You also suffer under the onus of a nation that not only tolerated but encouraged slavery at one time. That's the bad. You want tho benefit from the good? Share the onus of the bad. You can't have it both ways.

Answer 9

feeling sorry for slavery is like feeling sorry and apologizing to everybody in the world for all things anybody since humanity started did to anybody as we are all the human race
If you apologize to all the African Americans for slavery by past generations then you should also apologize to the American Indian for all the Americans who live here because it was really their land that our ancestors stole..

Answer 10

because we're hurt. and a lot of people don't mean all of America has to say sorry.