The timeline of an apology.
Today the Senate passed an apology for blocking anti-lynching legislation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Several bills were approved by the House of Representatives and various Presidents during that period, but all were stopped by a faction of Southern senators with segregation priorities.
Lynching is variously defined as, “a violent act, usually racial in nature, which denies a person due process of law and is carried out with the complicity of the local society.” Certainly every member of the town may not have participated in the act, but it was the neglect to prosecute the perpetrators that allowed this behavior to continue. The Senate unwittingly became party to the process by allowing States to overlook their responsibility to uphold the rights of all individuals in recovering slave societies.
While lynching now seems like a distressing but distant part of our nation’s history, this apology does not shrink in importance. It cements in writing the reality that our government got it wrong. We failed to stop harm - even to the point of propagating a known evil. While it cannot correct the wrongs of the past, the apology brings to mind how easily we neglect justice toward a few in exchange for the comfort of the general public.
The problem is that the general public is very uncomfortable seventy years down the road. And it is too late to do anything about it. There was never really a question about the morality of lynching; a decision was simply put off by those in power.
Forgive me, but I must make the connection here to Guantanamo Bay and the other detainment centers. Does anyone really question the improper conduct or unnecessary mistreatment of holding prisoners without legal proceedings? Do we debate whether the proven abuse has any moral defense? Yet we put off making a difficult decision because it is simpler to force these moral resolutions, these necessary apologies, on our grandchildren.
Let’s review our definition of lynching again: “a violent act, usually racial in nature, which denies a person due process of law and is carried out with the complicity of the local society.” Complicity- when we finally recognize that the lives of these prisoners deserve defending, will our complacence have ruined our chances to enact real justice? Or will we be left with only our overdue apologies?
Lynching is variously defined as, “a violent act, usually racial in nature, which denies a person due process of law and is carried out with the complicity of the local society.” Certainly every member of the town may not have participated in the act, but it was the neglect to prosecute the perpetrators that allowed this behavior to continue. The Senate unwittingly became party to the process by allowing States to overlook their responsibility to uphold the rights of all individuals in recovering slave societies.
While lynching now seems like a distressing but distant part of our nation’s history, this apology does not shrink in importance. It cements in writing the reality that our government got it wrong. We failed to stop harm - even to the point of propagating a known evil. While it cannot correct the wrongs of the past, the apology brings to mind how easily we neglect justice toward a few in exchange for the comfort of the general public.
The problem is that the general public is very uncomfortable seventy years down the road. And it is too late to do anything about it. There was never really a question about the morality of lynching; a decision was simply put off by those in power.
Forgive me, but I must make the connection here to Guantanamo Bay and the other detainment centers. Does anyone really question the improper conduct or unnecessary mistreatment of holding prisoners without legal proceedings? Do we debate whether the proven abuse has any moral defense? Yet we put off making a difficult decision because it is simpler to force these moral resolutions, these necessary apologies, on our grandchildren.
Let’s review our definition of lynching again: “a violent act, usually racial in nature, which denies a person due process of law and is carried out with the complicity of the local society.” Complicity- when we finally recognize that the lives of these prisoners deserve defending, will our complacence have ruined our chances to enact real justice? Or will we be left with only our overdue apologies?
posted by Erin 10:47 PM
6 Comments:
Let’s review our definition of lynching again: “a violent act, usually racial in nature, which denies a person due process of law and is carried out with the complicity of the local society.”
Your analogy works conveniently for the purposes you’ve crafted it for. But you failed to include several OTHER important characteristics of lynching. One, a lynching is a violent hanging to death of another person. (Last I checked, they aren’t stringing up these terrorists on the nearest trees. They are just keeping them safely behind bars.) Two, a lynching is performed by a mob, not a government. A closer analogy MIGHT be the forced internment of the Japanese and Japanese Americans during WWII, but the government certainly isn’t lynching any of these detainees.
You know, I can’t help but wonder if there is any hand wringing going on the Muslim world regarding the beheading of innocent civilians, or the murder of thousands on September 11th. Do you suppose there are blogs with burka wrapped women lamenting the killings of the innocent in the Western world? No, come to think of it, there couldn’t be, could there? … since women don’t have any rights to say what they think in those countries!
But continue to post your gripes here. Since THIS COUNTRY is one of the FEW places in the world where you CAN do that without fear of death for posting your opinion.
Good point(s). Makes me wonder whether the government will be apologizing seven decades from now for what's happening in GITMO/Abu Ghraib right now.
Cheers,
Bob
Dave and Bob,
Thanks for visiting my page. Welcome to you both.
Dave,
Thanks for your perspective. To clarify, lynching is not limited to hanging or mob actions. It's defining characteristic is that it is execution without due process of law. I understand that it is an easy point to confuse, but I did not mean to suggest that Guantanamo prisoners were being lynched in the historical way it has happened in the US. Instead, I am critiquing general abuse without legal sanction which has resulted in the death of several detainees.
Bob,
Thanks for the comment. I certainly hope we don't have to wait seven decades on this one.
Erin
This recent legislation has me wondering many of the same things that Bob is wondering -- What ELSE will we/should we be apologizing for over the course of the next century? But more than that -- What should we be doing NOW to prevent such heinous actions from ever being done? Why are we always reacting? Why can we be active? Reaction is basically passive -- fix what happened and apologize profusely. Action is active -- DUH! Why are we forced to be on our heels all the time with such legislation & social action??
BTW, I'm curious as to if Dave's comment about burka-clad women was some sort of swipe at Erin's gender. Were you trying to say that Erin should just be happy that she's a woman in the US and not in some country where she's oppressed? That she should just be happy that she's not considered chattel? I'm not trying to intentionally bring gender politics into play here, but such comments make me wonder....
Peace.
N,
Thanks for your response. I like your point about being actively engaged with the issues of our generation (and proactive to prevent injustice from creeping in under our noses).
And I also considered the gender implications of Dave's comment, but I am pretty sure that he isn't interested in hearing THIS woman's opinion anyway. Ha.
Erin
After watching Hotel Rwanda and reading up a little more on that tragedy, it occurred to me that this may epitomize the difference between Democrats and Republicans: Clinton apologized to the people of Rwanda for refusing to intervene in the genocide; Bush will not apologize to the Sudanese for doing nothing about the killing in Darfur. And I feel very sad and cynical typing that. The stories coming out of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay break my heart. I want us to be the good guys.
And by the way, there are lots of blogs out there written by Muslim women in Muslim countries. Of course, I don't know what they're wearing as they type.
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