There has been a lot of writing recently about why Japan still needs to apologize more thoroughly for their past history, but Wired News has a brief sidebar article today reminding us that there are plenty of other apologies out there that still need to be said. How many of the people who are pressuring Japan to pass a parliamentary declaration of apology genuinely want them to do so, and how many are counting on it not happening?
Overdue Apology
Lynching took the lives of over 4,700 people before finally being outlawed in the United States, because the Senate refused for years to pass legislation banning what one senator now calls “an American form of terrorism.” Despite the pleas of seven presidents, efforts to pass anti-lynching legislation repeatedly failed because of Senate filibusters staged between 1890 and 1952. On Monday, the Senate will consider a resolution, sponsored by Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) and George Allen (R-Virginia), expressing official remorse for the past.
— Tony Long
Don’t forget these apologies:
In 1988, Congress apologized to Japanese-Americans held in camps during World War II and gave each $20,000.
In 1993, Congress apologized to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii a century before.
In 1997, President Clinton apologized for the government’s “Tuskegee experiment” on 399 black men, who unknowingly were left untreated for syphilis to study its effects.