Announcement
- Finally started really reading "Walden." According to Thoreau's "Economy," changing clothes should more reasonably happen at important junctures in life; similarly to molting, or leaving a chrysalis.
My blog
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Senate Apology on Slavery
Friday, Jul 17, 2009 11:46PM / Standard Entry
The US Senate recently made a formal apology for the act of slavery. This article talks about the argument over whether or not it was appropriate to do so.
Some argue that so many American lives were already lost in the fight against slavery, the entire country should not have to apologize.
There's an interesting perspective in here - a woman who dug up her own family history found that the North was much more complicit in the slave trade than was written down in history. I think her argument is that the US govt in general was complicit in a way that warrants the need for apology.
My general reaction to this is: if all the people arguing agree that slavery was wrong - what is the big deal about the act of "apology"?
Does it cost anything?
Even if people did lose their lives fighting against it, does apologizing necessarily mean losing the dignity of their efforts?
I don't really get it. Of course, everyone's different.
The way I see it, that's equivalent to focusing on pride over the bigger picture.
(CNN) -- President Obama slowly walked across the grounds of Cape Coast Castle, a slave outpost in Ghana where hundreds of thousands of Africans were shipped as human cargo to a life of bondage in the United States, South America and the Caribbean.
President Obama and his family toured Cape Coast Castle during their trip to Ghana.
"You almost feel as if the walls can speak. You try to project yourself into these incredibly harrowing moments," Obama told CNN's Anderson Cooper.
When the president reached the "Door of No Return," an arched gateway with thick doors that would shut behind African men, women and children before they were forced onto slave ships, Obama looked out over the Atlantic Ocean where waves crashed onto rocks. "Obviously there's a sense of what a profound sorrow must've been felt as people were hauled off into the great unknown," he said.
What does he tell his two daughters, Sasha and Malia, about slavery?
"You try to explain that people were willing to degrade others because they appeared differently," Obama said. "You try to get them to engage in the imaginative act of what it would be like if they were snatched away from Mom and Dad and sent to some place they had never seen before. But you know, part of what you also try to do with kids is to get them to imagine themselves on the other side, as being the slave merchant.
"That slave merchant might've loved their children and gone to that place of worship," he said, pausing to point to a church on the grounds, "right above the dungeon. And [I try to] get them to make sure that they're constantly asking themselves questions if they're treating people fairly and whether they are examining their own behavior and how it affects others."
He toured the site with his family, including first lady Michelle Obama and her mother, who are descendants of slaves from South Carolina. "I can't imagine that for her, for her mother who is with us ... that seeing that portal doesn't send a powerful message -- the kinds of emotions that must be evoked."
The issue of apologizing for the past has prompted some heated discussion. In an interview that has gone viral on the Internet, Chris Matthews, the host of MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," blasts Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee for backing such an apology.
"It makes no sense to me. Why should the whole country apologize for what a good half or more of the country got killed opposing? You're from Tennessee. Maybe you should apologize first before you ask the rest of the country," Matthews snaps.
Katrina Browne, a descendant of wealthy Northerners, said she always thought slavery was confined to the South, until she began digging through her own family's history. She learned that her family, the DeWolfs, sailed ships from Bristol, Rhode Island, to West Africa, trading rum for African men, women and children in the late 1700s to early 1800s.
The DeWolf family brought more than 10,000 slaves from Africa, she said, and eventually became one of the wealthiest families in the nation as a result of its slave-trading business. Browne detailed her family's experience in a documentary last year called "Traces of the Trade: A story from the Deep North," as part of PBS's "Point of View" series.
"I'm a firm believer in the U.S. government apologizing because of all the ways in which the government supported and condoned and made slavery possible," said Browne, who has also traveled to Ghana to see Cape Coast Castle.
"What most Americans don't know is the extensive complicity of the North in slavery. The victors write the history books, so the North wrote the history on slavery and very conveniently painted it solely as a Southern sin, whereas in fact the Northern colonies and states owned slaves for over 200 years and were the main slave traders."
She said she found inspiration in Obama's trip to Ghana and the recent Senate apology. The nation needs to discuss the issue of slavery now more than ever, she said.
"Some people think that those of us who are white and believe in the importance of public apologies or public acknowledgements -- [they] feel that we're just a bunch of knee-jerk, guilt-ridden liberals," she said. "I like to say, 'Why wouldn't the government and white Americans want to go out of our way to make things right, including with what is just a very simple human step of offering an apology/acknowledgement?' "
In addition to the Senate apology, states such as Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia have enacted similar resolutions at the state level for their roles in sanctioning and promoting slavery.
But many feel an apology is over the top.
State Rep. Patrick McDonough opposed an apology when it was considered in Maryland in 2007. A descendant of Irish immigrants, McDonough said an apology is simply a "mindset cleansing" for liberals and a potential preamble for reparations.
"It's just a divisive grand-standing issue that makes no sense at all," said McDonough, a Republican radio host in Baltimore. "No. 1, I or my family have never owned slaves. We came to the United States from Ireland long after slavery had been abolished. No. 2, I think the apology has already been given in the way of 500,000 dead American soldiers in the Union Army who made it clear that they didn't approve of slavery and fought against it."
He added that tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers, both black and white, have been spent on programs to help African-Americans over the years, amounting to the equivalent of an apology for a bad institution.
"There is no need for an apology; there is a need for people to come together and work for the general welfare of the nation," he said. "The president, I believe, will pretty soon appoint a czar of apology."
On his trip in Ghana, Obama said the nation and the world should never forget the scourge of slavery because it's still relevant in today's world.
"I think that the experience of slavery is like the experience of the Holocaust. I think it's one of those things you don't forget about. I think it is important that the way we think about it and the way it's taught is not one in which there's simply a victim and a victimizer, and that's the end of the story," he said.
"I think the way it has to be thought about, the reason it's relevant is because whether it's what's happening in Darfur or what's happening in the Congo or what's happening in too many places around the world -- you know, the capacity for cruelty still exists."
"So trying to use these kinds of extraordinary moments to widen the lens and make sure that we're all reflecting on how we are treating each other, I think, is something I want my kids to think about and I want every child to think about."
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Nicholas, Rudy, Bruno, Summerstage, Chifa
Tuesday, Jul 14, 2009 3:46AM / Standard Entry
Haven't blogged for a while so I decided to try and catch up on some things that have happened since I got my camera fixed, from the past month and a half.
Finally got some pix of Nicholas, one of Michael's puppies:
When his ears are up, Nicholas looks like a white rabbit:
When his ears are back, he looks like a baby polar bear.
This is his growly baby polar bear look:
Now, this is Rudy, one of the cats:
Rudy the visionary.
Rudy the diva. (Vogue, Vogue, Vogue!)
Michael and I went to see Bruno last night. We LOVED it. Sasha Baron Cohen is brilliant. BRILLIANT!!! What the world needs now... is more SBC!!!
Also, Rowena and I went to see Anne Hathaway in Summerstage last week - as Viola in Twelfth Night. It was cool to see another version of the play we saw on Governor's Island last year. But since Anne Hathaway was in it, the line got extra crazy. We were there half an hour earlier than last year (7:15am) yet this time we didn't even get vouchers. Ended up sitting on our blanket for another 7 HOURS take our chances at standby.
In front of us sitting on their blanket were these two girls who started chatting with us. I couldn't believe their names were Wanda and Magnolia! Wanda and Magnolia, Wendy and Rowena.
They turned out to be cool, so the seven hours flew by. In the beginning, we talked about Junot Diaz's book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the Pulitzer in 2007 and happens to mention both my hometowns (woo!) Edison, and Ridgewood, NJ ... it's about a 2nd generation Dominican kid (the girls turned out to be Dominican) growing up in Jersey who goes back to the island to seek out his roots. Anyone who wants to read a second-generation, transnational experience in a fun, modern voice should read Oscar Wao... I just have to mention it b/c it was a really satisfying read for me!
(Diaz also wrote a short story included in his collection, Drown, called Edison, NJ. Incidentally, Edison, my first hometown, was the first town in the continental US to have a Korean American mayor. He recently lost the election to an Italian!)
Finally, we got into the show to see Anne Hathaway, who was great as Viola. When you see her on stage, it's obvious what a unique talent she is. Too bad we couldn't take pix.
Back, back to Fourth of July. I happened to bump into the parade in my town, where I saw Miss New Jersey waving from a car!
There's a feeling of total Americana in my suburb, where they have a big fireworks show every year, kicked off by parachuters who jump out of a plane and land on the grass in the field where the show is held. It's actually a pretty nice atmosphere.
A few weeks before that, I met up with writer Lisa Ko, who was staying in Allendale to finish a draft of her new book of short stories. We're both writing stuff that deals with growing up Chinese-American in New Jersey, so we had a lot to talk about!
We decided to check out Paterson, which surprisingly has the biggest Peruvian population in the US, to try out some local "chifa," or Peruvian-Chinese food. (Supposedly "chifa" comes from the words "chi fan.") Ended up at a little place on Main Street.
Breaded chicken in a lemon sauce...
The talented Lisa Ko! Lisa gave me a lot of inspiration and helpful advice to continue writing...
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mike kim on daily show
Thursday, Jul 2, 2009 11:28PM / Standard Entry
I saw this on angryasianman and thought I'd repost - pretty interesting - MIke Kim is the author of Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World's Most Repressive Countrytoo bad the video doesn't come up, please click on the link.
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Neda and MJ
Monday, Jun 29, 2009 6:00AM / Standard Entry
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2 quotes by William Faulkner
Sunday, Jun 28, 2009 3:19AM / Standard Entry
