Matthews berates Cohen on slavery apology: "Why should Pennsylvania apologize for something it fought and died" opposing?
June 19, 2009 7:17 pm ET
From the June 19 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
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America would've had slavery no matter what, but Africans were forcefully brought here because Natives wouldn't have any part of being held prisoner in their own land. Doesn't make it right, but that's just what was going on at the time. The colonists were just bringing their customs from home...
Apologies are nice, but aren't going to make a difference unless something is actually done to right all the wrongs, and they won't change history. They're also pretty hollow when people keep demonizing those that are different.
Look, I'm not arguing that Matthews is right; far from it. I agree with you. Matthews is wrong, wrong, wrong. I'm just saying Buchanan is worse. The worst.
As far as Matthews' stance here, I frankly don't understand it, although I don't watch Hardball, because I can't stand the guy.
Matthews' argument is clearly ridiculous. New England may never have had slaves, but they sure as hell profited from them, and didn't mind capturing them or buying them in Africa,
Has Matthews never heard of the Triangle Trade? There's evidence Pennsylvania participated in it as well. I'm sure Matthews would be quite displeased to see this reference in the online Encyclopedia Britannica: "A large and profitable system of triangular trade involved foodstuffs and wood products, such as lumber and barrel staves, that went from Philadelphia to the West Indies and there were exchanged for sugar, rum, and other ..." (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/604627/triangular-trade)
What does Matthews expect? He wants the Senate resolution to detail which states were free, which were slave, and the status of the territories, which would have to include their longitude and latitude? Can you imagine what a mess of a resolution that would be? Then he wants it to say: "Whereas, the United States, on behalf of the following states, which were slave at the start of the Civil War, and only those states, because all of the other states were totally NOT slave states, and the territories contained herein, at least those parts of the territories that were slave, and NOT the parts of the territories that were NOT slave, hereby apologize."
It's so ridiculous. And you can't even use the language I just used, because it's not grammatical. You can't say "that were slave." Slave-holding? Held slaves? In which slavery was legal?
I mean, the Senate may as well include language that says, "Oh, and as far as the tens of millions of people whose ancestors weren't even in this country before 1900: never mind. They're not apologizing for anything. And for the African-Americans whose ancestors were NOT slaves. This apology does NOT apply to you. Even though you and yours fully experienced all of the aftereffects of slavery, Chris Matthews convinced us to put all sorts of caveats into this apology, so no go."
Just what the hell is Matthews problem?
Buchanan identifies with the Confederate South. He proudly talks about his rebel ancestors who fought in the 'War of Northern Aggression'. But Buchanan is a longtime professional propagandist so I don't know what he'd actually say as he's always giving as much weight to the political effect of his words as to their veracity. But one thing's very likely; he would not have used Mathews' argument that the North should not also be held accountable.
A long time ago I read a book I think called "They Were Irish and They Were Slaves". It detailed the history of Irish enslavement in America. It denied the "indentured servitude" characterization found in many history books.
This link gives some idea of it:
http://www.newworldcelts.org/irish_slaves.htm
Not only did Matthews "Buchananize" the topic, speaking strictly from and squarely within a Whitened perspective not counting the blood-life-death sacrifices of Africans/African-Americans, but he tried to not only act like every/most Union soldier fought to abolish slavery -- letters and artifacts from actual Union soldiers complicate this decades old White racist frame -- but tried to include the very soldiers in the South he deemed responsible for the Civil War. Of course, as the racist frame goes, the Civil War dead is essentially mentioned as payment enough for slavery. Matthews did that until he realized how he made a complete and utter fool of himself spitting all over the set in his fit of irrational, prejudice rage. This is the clearest sign that slavery lives on in the hearts and minds of so many Americans...
For those who claim as Matthews did that their ancestors weren't a part of slavery, as the saying goes, "don't hate the player, hate the game [or the system]." African-Americans did absolutely nothing in terms of making or contributing to the decision to intern Japanese-Americans yet their taxes, even those who were not born during WWII, went towards the reparations compensation awarded to Japanese-Americans. African-Americans today also weren't slaves, as so many like to say (non-points all), but in an America that is still largely segregated in many respects, America's race slavery still marks their lives with the deficits and disadvantages that merely started during slavery and have yet to be rectified -- that can't be when wealth White families were able to create as a direct result of racist policies enacted 50 and 60 years ago or less will soon result in "the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in US history."
Read "Slavery By Another Name" by Douglas Blackmon
I think your "just as much" is another false equivalence.
Michael Donald (July 24, 1961 – March 20, 1981) was picked at random as the victim of a lynching by two Ku Klux Klan members in Mobile, Alabama, United States in 1981.
Some consider James Byrd the last lynching.
At age 75, I'm not sure how I feel about this apology business.
As far as other nationalities suffering, I don't know of other nationalities having their families member sold. Entire families sent to different owners and please, notice I said OWNERS. Children sold, African American men and women forced to bred like animals, only to have their children sold to others like cattle or sheep.
Discrimination is one thing, but how many other nationalities were treated like farm animals. Breding the two strongest, to create a stronger slave and then selling that slave to the highest bidder. Who knew the US had already tried cloning.
I will NEVER forget Emmitt Till. A 14 year old, African American CHILD, dragged from his uncle's home at midnight, beaten, shot and dropped in the river with a 70 pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck, wrapped in barbed wire. His crime? No one is really sure, it ranged from he whistled at a white woman, to called her baby.
The year was 1955 and I was the mother of 2 small little girls.
Now if not being allowed to sit at a lunch counter or having to ride on the back of the bus were all that happened to African Americans you might be able to compare it to other nationalities. But what happened to African Americans was a hell of a lot more than simple discrimination.
I too had nothing to do with the mistreatment of Japanese Americans, but I'm a citizen of this country. And this country owed Japanese Americans an apology, so I owed Japanese Americans one as well. As a citizen of this country I share blame as well as pride.
Doesn't a simply apology seem small when you compare it to over 200 years of slavery and 90 years of Jim Crow laws?
Excuse me, was welfare created JUST for African Americans?
HOW freaking long has this country had affirmative action and HOW LONG DID SLAVERY AND JIM CROWS LAWS exist?
So from 1960 till now (49 years), African Americans should have erased over 200 years of slavery and 90 years of Jim Crow laws?
By your comment, you simply proved that YOU don't know sh*t about African Americans OR their community!
So now the number is the issue?
Let me say I know that Italians, Pole and Jews were discriminated against but they were NOT treated like African Americans.
YOU tell me how many Italians, Poles and Jews were held for days at a race track prior to the slave auction, so that owners could inspect them. Mouths pulled open, teeth checked, limbs pinched for muscle, stooping, bending and walking to check for signs of lameness. How many Italians, Poles and Jews had family member sold to different owners. Mothers, Fathers and children, never seeing there family again, How many?
I don't want your freaking guilt and YOU shouldn't feel any guilt! Acknowledge that African Americans suffered unbelievable horror that was slavery, NOT try to compare it some other event as some type of proof that America has paid their debt. Slavery and Jim Crow were horrific and inhumane events, there is NO comparison and who are you to decide that almost 50 years of change is enough compared to 200 plus years of slavery?
YOU started you post with a comparison of the discrimination that immigrants received vs African Americans. so I ask you HOW MANY immigrants came to this country on ships, already slaves, packed like sardines, feed little food or water, no sanitation, thrown into the sea when they couldn't survive the journey?
As a 75 year old African American, I live through Jim Crow and my family lived slavery. And no, I'm not a racist, I'm a realist.
We ALL rightfully take pride in America's great accomplishments. So too should we ALL take responsibility for America's great failures. Its OUR nation, and we should own up to its legacies, both good and bad.
No I'm not interested in your feeling bad about about the issue of institutionalized slavery. Or the oppression of any population group so designated by some populist rablerouser.
If a population fails to resist or try to change the their country's oppression, then they share the resposibility of that oppression.
I put tribal loyalty at the base of this social structure. Without it we're all just people.
OMG!! THAT, you moron is NOT collective guilt of whites!! It's the SHAME of a COUNTRY!! Get it? IF you're an American citizen and you take pride in America's accomplishments, you also must take shame for slavery.
Your problem is you think any apology is somehow personal, it's not! It's America apolgizing for a shameful, hateful, horriable act.
You need to check yourself, you have some serious issues with guilt.
Let me put it this way: can you grasp the HUGE difference between being dead and being alive? Good. That's the kind of huge difference I'm talking about. HUGE.
When you are a slave, you are OWNED by someone. They can KILL you, for fun. They can rape you, mutilate you, sell you. Your dog has more legal protection than a human slave had. Do you understand? You cannot legally kill your dog, or torture him. You will go to jail. That is a good thing. But you could have, and they did, do all kinds of nasty things to your slave. And it was completely legal.
When you are an immigrant, there are generally two broad kinds of discrimination. The first is not lethal, and it involves employment, housing, and other types of similar discrimination. It's not right, it sucks, it's illegal, and you can sue. You may not win, but at least it's against the law. And you're not going to die from it.
The second kind of discrimination is worse, and it may involve violence, it's more often called racism, at its worst it involves hate groups, and you may die from it. However, it still differs from slavery IN THE EXTREME because it's illegal, it's not institutionalized, and it's rare, whereas slavery was institutionalized, approved by the government, it was legal, and exceedingly common.
Do you get it yet? If you do, great, welcome to the 21st century. If you don't, I'm not going to call you racist, as your comment defensively posits.
I'm simply going to call you beyond help, and hope Chris Matthews reads your comment, shudders, realizes what he has engendered, and quickly changes his mind.
The USA can never undo, or make up for, the wrongs directed towards the African-American population and I for one will be happy when we just accept people for their character and not the color of their skin. Electing Obama showed that racism towards this particular population is dying out somewhat, but racism towards the African-American people is still alive and kicking in the good old USA. I agree that policy changes (health care, jobs) is the "reparations" needed to give people the boost they may need to strive towards the American dream.
- The Atlantic Slave Trade was the largest forced migration in world history.
- 12 million Africans were captured and enslaved in the Americas, more than 80/day for 400 years.
-Over 40,000 ships brought slave across the ocean
The Federal apology sounds to me like another clever gambit of the GOP to spread the blame for yet one more monumental screw-up/disaster. Kudos to Mathews for standing up on his legs like that.
The Southern Cohen's argument about the North also benefiting is sound though IMO. And it would look good for the country to issue the apology as a country. But this would hand the southern based GOP a political victory. IMO Democrats have to overcome the desire to be seen as doing the right thing and more so do the politically smart thing.
How many times does this guy come on tv with some rant that if it was said by some Republican would be considered racist. For example, his comment about the fire firefighter discrimination case that as an Irishman he was "Entitled" to the job as a fire man because "his people" have done it for years. He went on to state/infer that minorities had no right to "his people's" jobs.
Now this. PA did not have slaves. NY did not have slaves really. This is what happens when ignorant people are allowed on TV to spew nonsense. He has no duty to pay or apologize for slavery because he did not benefit. Note that background of his set many days is the Capitol building which was built by slaves. His people did not benefit from slavery or Jim Crow except that the jobs they were given ahead of black people in the 20thC until today in some cases.
He is a disgrace to America. Its people like his that me into a black Republican.
You're also clueless!
Your near-obsessive insistence of white innocence and victimization is becoming a tad compulsive... as well as a tad suspect. You are beginning to sound more than a little like Rush, who dementedly and dishonestly insists that black people and white liberals are the only REAL racists around... and that to point out the very EXISTENCE of white racism is IN ITSELF an act of racism!
This is, of course, a demonstrably imbecilic position.
To continually accuse Pearline of racism is just plain weird! She has proven herself time and time again on this board to be an intelligent and wise observer of of this world. We're all better for her presence. She has amassed a lifetime of pertinent experience on this as well as myriad other topics, and is well respected here to say the least. You are coming off as just another desperate and ostrich-like wingnut, who simply cannot face up to America's irrefutably racist past. It is a tragic and nearly blinding flaw in America's historically vital experiment and mission. To continually snarl at black folk that slavery, Jim Crow, and the far more subtle but still pernicious face of contemporary racism is not YOUR problem and you don't want to even freakin' want to HEAR about it, simply brings your OWN sense of basic reality into question.
It would do you more good than you can possibly imagine if you were to pull off your defensive blinders, go back and reread Pearline's posts, and critically THINK about what she has to say. There's much to be learned there. There's much growth to be experienced. Avail yourself of it, because, in the long run, it will benefit you, as well as the rest our society, by potentially adding one more voice to the cause of a more just society.
Think about it.
To begin with, this entire thread is about SLAVERY, and the apology that we as a people owe for its long and barbarous history in this nation, and NOT IMMIGRATION! To say that Pearlene, 'other people", and I, " ... minimize the immigrants struggle for equal rights..." shows that, not only are you hopelessly confused about the topic of this thread, but that you haven't even remotely understood what others are saying. No one... I repeat, NO ONE... is denying the struggle that immigrants have traditionally faced when arriving in this country. I even talked briefly about my OWN family's history, as I, like nearly EVERYONE ELSE posting here, ARE THE DESCENDANTS OF IMMIGRANTS! Jeeez... but, try and keep up here, alright?
Your reckless and obnoxious use of the highly-charged word 'racist' is also more than a little troubling. You GROUNDLESSLY accused Pearline of being a racist, and then turned around and made the same ignorant accusation against me. I'm a white guy, so you can imagine my surprise at being accused of being prejudiced against myself. I can only surmise that you don't have the slightest idea of what the word actually means. Like some sort of primordial dittohead, you simply fire it off against those who dare to challenge your own weak-ass assertions, with all the wit and smugness of a right winger accusing liberals of being fascists. You're using the Bizarro World definition of the word.
I know I'm not the first person on this thread to try and make this point to you, but I'm going to give it a try anyway. As much as immigrants have always been forced to struggle and claw their way up in American society, that experience is not comparable to that of black folks. Immigrants have always come here of their own volition, audaciously pursuing the potential of a better and more just life for them and their offspring. It has often been a heroic and admiral endeavor, but IS IN NO WAY THE EQUIVALENT OF BEING KIDNAPPED, BRUTALIZED, AND DRAGGED OVER IN CHAINS! The children of immigrants WERE NOT SOLD OFF TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER! Immigrants always had the option of moving on to another city if they were unhappy enough with their lot in the city that they first landed in. Slaves, since classified as PROPERTY, COULD NOT!
The capital that financed the early building of America... and made later immigration even possible... was accumulated through the profits that slavery produced for the slave-owning classes. The maritime trade in human beings helped to finance the farming, the ship building, and the manufacturing base of the northern colonies. It made all future growth... the growth that would then require the importing of cheap, immigrant labor, possible. ALL AMERICANS (save Native Americans) HAVE BEEN AT LEAST THE INDIRECT BENEFICIARIES OF SLAVERY, WHETHER THEY EVER PERSONALLY OWNED ANOTHER HUMAN BEING OR NOT!
So, to exclude yourself from the apology that this nation unquestionably owes for the horror that it inflicted upon one particular group of Americans is to exclude yourself from America's heritage. Slavery has always been the gaping contradiction in America's central thesis of liberty and human dignity. You can't take an honest pride in America's accomplishments... many of which occurred before our own particular ancestors set foot on these shores... but then turn around and divorce yourself from its failings. It is a moral debt that we ALL owe.
I'm blowing you a big, fat kiss!!!!