Confronting the Past: America Finally Turns Its Attention to Rampant Racism

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Spot on commentary. It's how the US looks from outside these borders. Not a pretty picture.

Confronting the Past: America Finally Turns Its Attention to Rampant Racism

A Commentary by Markus Feldenkirchen

Why is America only now having an honest debate about racism? The dead from Charleston are also the dead of a nation that has long refused to work through its past mistakes.

The United State excels at dealing with the injustices of other countries. They often even help other countries to cope with their shameful past. Germany will always be grateful to the US for sending American troops across the Atlantic to defeat the Nazis. And for insisting that the Germans be held accountable for the crimes they committed. The Nuremberg trials gave Germans the opportunity to own up to what they had done. They could no longer deny it.

The US has been less successful, however, in conducting the same process when addressing the dark parts of its own past. This includes its treatment of Native Americans who were brutally repressed, or even killed, in order to clear the way for Western expansion. They were betrayed, neglected and disrespected. Today, they live on reservations in some of the saddest living conditions the civilized world has to offer.

Americans seem even more forgetful when it comes to the history of blacks, who were once snatched from their homes, forced into ship galleys and kept like animals for centuries. Even after the end of the Civil War and the official abolition of slavery, it took another hundred years before the discriminatory racial laws were finally officially lifted.

No Clean Break, No Apologies

To this day, the US has never issued a formal apology nor made any attempts at redress, let alone compensation. Instead, many patterns of institutionalized racism still exist. When a clean break from the past is not made, it may be difficult for people to part with their old ways of thinking. Indeed, not only do many Americans continue to hold twisted notions of the superiority of whites, but these beliefs often go unchallenged.

Imagine: 150 years have passed since the American Civil War ended, and only now has a national debate begun over whether some of the symbols of the South are inappropriate. Nine black people had to die in Charleston -- executed by a white Nazi adorned with the Confederate flag and other symbols of alleged white supremacy. It seems that there was never a thought given to the fact that the South went to war against the North partly in order to defend their "right" to continue to hold blacks like animals, to put them in chains, to beat them when they were down.

How is it that for many politicians and American citizens, this flag has only now become a little embarrassing? Why are people only now asking whether it is really a good idea to name streets and public spaces after the greatest generals in the fight for slavery? They may have been brave soldiers, but if they were fighting for a despicable cause, they should not have monuments built in their honor. Unless, of course, we believe that what they stand for is not really so reprehensible.

A Sign of Greatness

On the Mall in Washington -- and not somewhere in Germany -- one can find one of the best and most poignant Holocaust museums in the world. Yet similarly impressive museums dedicated to the history of slavery, to racist polices throughout American history or to the treatment of Native Americans, are missing. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, is enshrined on that Mall in a monument fit for a deity. The fact that Jefferson was also a brutal slave owner is something one only learns at his former estate in Monticello. Perhaps not surprisingly, that fact is not prominently displayed.

To date, the American treatment of its own dark past is so ignorantly passive, so intentionally vague, so in denial that it begs the question: Do the majority of Americans feel any guilt or acknowledge any wrongdoing toward blacks and Native Americans?

Every nation has dark spots in its past, and nowhere are those spots darker than in Germany. However, the greatness of a country is reflected in how it deals with this past and whether it critically examines it. In this respect, the United States is not the great nation it believes itself to be.

Translated from the German by Jiffer Bourgignon

URL:

• http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-us-confronts-its-racist-past-a-1040952.html

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Very well written and on point. No one speaks of the Native Americans and the injustices they suffered and continue to suffer. People pretend like they do not exist. There has been no formal apology by the government for slavery and many people think food stamps is a sort of reparation for black people even though we aren't the majority on food stamps nor was this program started for black people.

It is hard to move on in ANY relationship without an apology, accepting the blame and with clear cut guidelines as to how to fix the problem. This is the same for a marriage, friendship, dating, with kids, family relationships and even work relationships. But we keep pretending all will be well if we continue to ignore the past, ignore the present and pretend that the future will bring about better things without a plan on how to bring about better things. Just darn stupid.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

This is because most people don't want to acknowledge how bad things really were and even though we've made some great strides, we still have a long way to go. That's why I made the point about those slain in SC.

Not to mention, no one wants to be held accountable for what their ancestors did. People now a days think it doesn't apply to them since they don't own slaves or their ancestors didn't. A member here said that to me a while ago, even though I said nothing about it, he made it a point to let me know he didn't owe me anything since he didn't own slaves.

The Native Americans suffered just as bad if not worse than black people back then(Chris Rock made a point, have you ever seen a group of Indians?) and yet we won't acknowledge it. Just like discrimination, once the chains went off and the laws were lifted, 450 years of oppression just disappeared and the attitudes that were built because of it, oh well. You have to deal with it.

[Boiler 45,497]

In my family's case it was the Italians and then the French but I have never seen one word of apology. Never mind reparations.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

In my family's case it was the Italians and then the French but I have never seen one word of apology. Never mind reparations.

Did your family experience slavery?

[Boiler 45,497]

Serfdom, essentially the same.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Serfdom, essentially the same.

Did that happen here?

[Boiler 45,497]

In the US?

US included penal colonies up to c1780, and I am not sure there is much difference in reality between the two.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

In the US?

US included penal colonies up to c1780, and I am not sure there is much difference in reality between the two.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom

[eieio 1,594]

We should not overlook the thousands of Union soldiers who died on the battlefield ,in part, to end slavery. Surely that counts for something?