tenesse law makers says,sorry reparations not in the agenda!

[afrikanrebel06]

Tennessee bill would apologize for slavery
Measure stops short of reparations offer

By Chas Sisk • THE TENNESSEAN • March 26, 2009

The General Assembly has started debate on a resolution that would express "profound regret" for enslaving African-Americans and setting up the Jim Crow segregation system. The resolution is meant to draw attention to the legacy of racism in Tennessee.

"This is a step toward racial healing," said the measure's sponsor, Rep. Brenda Gilmore, a Nashville Democrat.

The measure passed its first vote Wednesday in a state House subcommittee. One representative, Chattanooga Republican Gerald McCormick, opposed the measure, saying that it would cause division within the state.

"There's no one left alive today who either had slaves or was a slave," McCormick said. "I just feel like we're opening up a wound, and I'd rather move forward rather than look backward."

Five former slave states — Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama and Florida — have passed legislation in recent years apologizing for slavery. New Jersey has also passed legislation apologizing for its role in the slave trade.

Tennessee lawmakers have tackled the issue as well. Last year, Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen sponsored a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives apologizing for slavery, and earlier in this decade, former Democratic state Rep. Henri Brooks of Memphis tried to get the Tennessee legislature to apologize.

But Brooks' efforts were tripped up by her vocal advocacy for reparation payments for African-Americans.
Reparations not in bill

Gilmore said her resolution, HJR 7, is not meant to be a step toward reparations.

Instead, the measure calls on the legislature to "express its deepest sympathy and solemn apology" for its acts, but Gilmore said it stops short of directly apologizing in order to assuage objections that the resolution could be taken as an admission of guilt by the state.

"I think an acknowledgement itself would be a great step toward the racial divide," Gilmore said.
Members of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators expressed some support for the resolution, but they said they do not want the measure to distract from other business. "If it serves the purpose of helping people get beyond this … then, fine, we'll support it," said Rep. John Deberry, D-Memphis, the caucus' chairman. "But our whole intent, for the Black Caucus, is not to dredge up issues that divide us."
Gilmore was moved to introduce the resolution by the recent commemorations of the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she said.
Past called 'shameful'

The three-page resolution states that slavery has left a "bitter legacy" in the United States, and that Tennessee, with a slave population in 1860 of 275,000 people, or one-quarter of the state, played a part in creating that legacy.

The resolution also says that gains made by African-Americans were "eviscerated by racism, lynchings, enforced segregation, and other insidious practices" under Jim Crow laws until civil rights legislation was passed a century later.

It concludes by calling on the legislature to acknowledge "the fundamental injustice, brutality, and inhumanity" of slavery and discrimination. It also asks Tennesseans to "reflect upon the shameful past that was slavery."

Gilmore said she is uncertain whether the measure has the 50 votes needed to get through the House before moving on to the Senate.

"I have to find at least 50 people that will have the courage to vote for this bill," she said. "Race is such a sensitive issue that a lot of people would rather not talk about it."

Members of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators expressed some support for the resolution, but they said they do not want the measure to distract from other business. "If it serves the purpose of helping people get beyond this … then, fine, we'll support it," said Rep. John Deberry, D-Memphis, the caucus' chairman. "But our whole intent, for the Black Caucus, is not to dredge up issues that divide us."


Gilmore was moved to introduce the resolution by the recent commemorations of the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she said.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090326/NEWS0201/903260342

[Iniko Ujaama]

The resolution also says that gains made by African-Americans were "eviscerated by racism, lynchings, enforced segregation, and other insidious practices" under Jim Crow laws until civil rights legislation was passed a century later.

Something about that time line doesn't sit right with me. If we are to narrate a history by events so many silences exist. I didn't know civil rights legislation was passed a whole century ago. But even then, if I recall people were marching all the way in the sixties trying to access these civil rights(and are still marching). These attempts to extricate the state from their complicity is so annoying and disrespectful. It is as if the issue is brought about to ease the conscience of some people and they want to use the victims to achieve that aim but they want to make no fundamental reconciliation. I may be late on the train of annoyed people but increasingly I am annoyed by these decietful and sometimes deluded (not in this case though) attempts at reconciliation.

Members of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators expressed some support for the resolution, but they said they do not want the measure to distract from other business. "If it serves the purpose of helping people get beyond this … then, fine, we'll support it," said Rep. John Deberry, D-Memphis, the caucus' chairman. "But our whole intent, for the Black Caucus, is not to dredge up issues that divide us."

I think those people there are jokers. I think  here we have some people who are again playing the fool pretending to be representatives of African people.

I U