Favorite Blog Post : 4th Quarter

My favorite blog post this year is "What does your name say about you?"

My favorite blog post that I chose has many connections to what we have been talking about in class and I enjoyed writing it very much. I think that this quarter I definitely dropped the ball on blogging. I have almost no blogs for the month of April and only two for May. But do think that my blogging this quarter has greatly improved. I'm not going to lie, at the beginning of this year blogging was much more of a chore to me than something I enjoyed. But, as the year has progressed I have come to really enjoy blogging and am so glad I am in a class that does it. Blogging has made me more comfortable writing and forced me to make connections from out class to the real world. Although I may not continue blogging after this class I will surely (shirley?) continue making connections from the news to my life.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Senate's Apology

During our discussions in class about reparations, I found myself remembering hearing about an apology from the government for slavery. I then found an article reporting just that, a formal apology from the Senate.

The interesting aspect of this apology is that the Senate specifically stated that it cannot be seen as a form of reparation. The reason this is so interesting to me is that during our class discussions we all seemed to come to the consensus that the best form of reparation does not  necessarily include a check but rather an apology. I agree with this, at this point in time I don't think that money is going to heal any wounds that were created by slavery. If it were during the time of reconstruction, I think monetary reparation would be completely appropriate. In fact the US government attempted this by giving all former slaves 40 acres and a mule, but that solution clearly failed.

This resolution was seen as an "important and significant milestone" by Senator Tim Harkin, but throughout the article we were reminded that this apology should not be seen as a form of reparation for slavery. But why can't it be? Even if no monetary compensation has been made, I believe that an apology is worth much more. Especially in a time where it would be very difficult to determine who deceives that check.

However, even though I believe that the time for monetary compensation for slavery has passed, I think that this apology was very appropriate, no matter how overdue. I would even support a separate apology and some sort of monetary compensation to those African Americans still alice who endured the Jim Crow laws.
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