Today the House of Representatives officially apologized for the institution of slavery and the Jim Crow south yet I don’t know how I feel about it.

The “nonbinding resolution” was introduced by Rep. Steve Cohen, a white lawmaker who represents a majority black district in Memphis, Tennessee and was passed by a voice vote.  (I’m no government expert but it sounds fugazi…kind of like one of those friendlies in soccer.  It didn’t count.)  The resolution, which  was clearly an attempt at disguised grandstanding featured language littered with words like injustice, cruelty, brutality and the inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow.

If I sound a little sarcastic and disinterested that’s because I am.  I’m sorry but slavery, the Jim Crow south…THEY HAPPENED!  Is this an attempt by “folks” to say “alriiiight already enough!  Maybe if we apologize it’ll go away?”

If not then what’s the purpose?  Are we going now edit our history books to include that although blacks were oppressed by the institution of slavery for 300 years, hung from trees by racists in white sheets its all good now in 2008 because Congress wrote a formal apology?  Of course not.  Without slavery, without the eventual civil rights era we wouldn’t celebrate our great heroes like Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr. or the Black Panthers.  Without struggle there is no progress.

I’ve noticed that some other bloggers have chosen to focus on the resolutions failure to address reparations.  Lets face it…its not happening, Bush disguised it as your economic stimulus check. The real reparations were given to us by the aforementioned leaders years ago.  THEY TAUGHT US!  Those who neglected to learn and follow their example have missed out.

All that however doesn’t excuse the silly nature of today’s shenanigans. This country is comical at times but you gotta love it.  Our dollar in in the toilet…people treat each other like crap but there’s no where else I’d rather live.  “Only in America.”