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Never too late to apologize?
Today, the federal government announced a settlement with Native Americans worth billions of dollars. It puts to rest a huge class action lawsuit that concerned events going back more than a century.
...the Interior Department will distribute $1.4 billion to more than 300,000 tribe members to compensate them for historical accounting claims, and to resolve future claims. The department also will spend $2 billion to buy back and consolidate tribal land lost by previous generations. The program will allow individual tribe members to obtain cash payments for divided land interests and free up the land for the benefit of tribal communities.
The settlement resolves a 13-year-old dispute in which Indian tribes claim they were swindled out of billions of dollars in oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887.
The lawsuit said the government actually owed the tribes $47 billion. The settlement was for much less. It works out to be about $1,500 per individual in the lawsuit plus the $2 billion for buying back tribal lands.
Meanwhile, the Collegiate Church is testing the "never too late" theory even more. The church has apologized to the Lenape tribe for transgressions that occurred when the Dutch settled what is now New York City, circa 1628:
"We consumed your resources, dehumanized your people, and disregarded your culture, along with your dreams, hopes and great love for this land ... We the Collegiate Church recognize our part in your suffering," said Reverend Robert Chase of the Collegiate Church at the reconciliation ceremony.
This was purely a verbal apology, not a monetary one.
But as for the federal government, do you think financial payments for events that occurred so long ago are justified/needed? Should financial reparations be extended to African-Americans for slavery? I know there are legal differences between the two cases, but there's some moral symmetry...
Yea, but there's a reason why "Irish slavery" ended not long after it began and why African slavery really took off. The Irish folks could easily escape and blend in with the population while the blacks stood out. Yes, these folks were wronged, but to a FAR lesser extent then the Africans.
Actually, no, there are no similarities between the Cobell case and any reparations claims.
The Indians leased their land and the government held the payments in trust for them. Over the years the feds lost track of the money.
The settlement restores some of what the Indians are legally owed. It has nothing to do with reparations.
If you had a bank account and the government "lost" it after 50 or 100 years, would you shrug and say, "Oh, well...I don't want that old money anyway"? If so, you'd be about the only person in the world to feel that way.
Thank you Rob. There is little similarity between this case and a case for reparations, because the Federal government possessed a legal responsibility to manage Indian trust funds and lands held in trust. A case for reparations for slavery has a moral premise, but not necessarily a legally actionable one. And though slavery ended long ago, the mismanagement of Indian trust has continued until very recently.
Perhaps there is a moral symmetry in the desire to right old wrongs, but the premise behind Cobell is a legal one, not a moral one, and Native Americans would be owed the money lost as a result of mismanagement even if they were each individually wealthy and not the recipients of a legacy of racism and extermination.
Whew! Glad to see that you all can see through the false equivalency Jagow is trying to make between this issue and slavery reparations.
this settlement isn't an apology for moral wrongs, as are the so-called reperations. It's money aquired by the government through the selling, leasing, or otherwise monetizing indian assets. Monies that the government never disbursed to the tribes, though they were legally obligated to do so.
I understand the differences. Using the word slavery is the problem with my question. Broadening it out to economic transgressions against African-Americans might bring it closer to a somewhat reasonable comparison. For example, segregation of schools creating disadvantages for future income. I've read some editorials from African-Americans raising the question in light of this settlement, so I don't think it's entirely off-base to broach the subject, if one uses better language around it than I did.
I agree, Mr. Jagow. As an African-American female, I don't think it would be outrageous to say that reparations for continued wrongs are in order.
HOWEVER-- It would not benefit this country to simply dole out a bunch of cheques to anyone with proven ancestry in the atrocities of American slavery. One, our economy simply would collapse completely (and no one wants that, save our enemies). Two, its not what's needed.
I would personally be satisfied with help in ghettos, getting the children "up and out", REALLY taking a national interest in seeing them become a truly equal power in the future of our employment/business/economy system. And not just Blacks, but all deprived ethnicities. The cutting back on college grants was designed to keep that from being a reality, and many other changes slyly do an end-run around Civil Rights and Affirmative Action legislation.
I don't know about most Blacks, but all I ask is that my children be given a real chance to get somewhere in life. For all those that had dreams and brains in the past but were denied because of color their shot at being "just another old family with money", this is what I would like to see happen.
