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Wednesday, December 3, 1997

U.S. must act for a change

The issue of an apology for slavery and the long-term oppression of African Americans should be a no-brainer. The U.S. government was, at best, complacent in allowing an unspeakable injustice to be brought down upon human beings living within its borders. At worst, the U.S. government encouraged and exploited this injustice (among other injustices) to build the nation we currently live in. Allowing the long-term perpetuation of this injustice, failing to provide even the most basic rights of citizenship until barely more than 30 years ago, will be to our nation's eternal shame. The first step is admitting, as a nation, that we have a problem. Once we can do that, maybe we have the courage to begin to address the crushing inequality of opportunity still faced by African Americans, and, to a lesser degree, other people of color in this nation. It is our moral obligation to try, and to try whole-heartedly.

Incidentally, the question of whether other nations and groups apologize for the wrongs that they have wrought is not relevant ­ if they systematically executed their poorest individuals, that would not make it acceptable for the United States to do the same. We, the people of the United States, need to put our moral house in order and start leading by example rather than through hypocritical rhetoric about human rights.

John Hetts

Graduate student

Social psychology