The Health Benefits of Australia's Apology. What's Stopping Americans?

[mojowork_n]

There are two links to the Australian story, and another that I've pasted in, at the end...

Excerpt from the New Scientist (down under):

"...The concept of an apology has been controversial since it was recommended by the 1997 report of a government inquiry into the Stolen Generations, titled Bringing them Home. Former prime minister John Howard refused to apologise, arguing that today's Australians were not accountable for the misdemeanours of previous generations.

The exact number of Stolen Generation children that were removed is uncertain, but it is believed that from 1910 to 1970, between 10 and 30% of indigenous children were taken from their homes. The report documents a high incidence of depression, substance abuse, and other mental and physical health problems among the children and their descendents.

"It's tremendously significant in mental health respects. It will help the healing process, and that in turn will contribute to physical well-being," says Marlene Kong, a GP in Newcastle in New South Wales, and a medical policy researcher at the Australian Indigenous Doctors' Association in Canberra.

Link to complete text:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13314-australian-apology-may-boost-aboriginal-health.html

In a related article (entitled, "The Health Benefits of Australia's Apology"), the UTNE reader magazine noted:

"Native Americans in the United States struggle with some of the same issues of substance abuse and depression, yet the United States has no general program for reparations for Native Americans and no prospects for adopting one..."

http://www.utne.com/2008-02-14/Science-Technology/The-Health-Benefits-of-Australias-Apology.aspx



...Come to think of it, that's not even to begin to discuss the apology this country owes to our Native African-descended population. Those Americans whose ancestors were kidnapped from their homes and families, a continent away. (That is, those who had ancestors 'lucky' enough to survive the Middle Passage.) So they could come here and have the opportunity to work, in this country, as a never-compensated, immigrant labor force.

One of the best discussions of that issue, that I've seen, is here:

http://www.housingforall.org/timwise.htm

(The writer, incidentally, is a European American-descended fellow.)

Excerpt:

"Ask a fish what water is and you'll get no answer. Even if fish were capable of speech, they would likely have no explanation for the element they swim in every minute of every day of their lives. Water simply is. Fish take it for granted.

So too with this thing we hear so much about, "racial preference." While many whites seem to think the notion originated with affirmative action programs, intended to expand opportunities for historically marginalized people of color, racial preference has actually had a long and very white history.

Affirmative action for whites was embodied in the abolition of European indentured servitude, which left black (and occasionally indigenous) slaves as the only unfree labor in the colonies that would become the U.S.

Affirmative action for whites was the essence of the 1790 Naturalization Act, which allowed virtually any European immigrant to become a full citizen, even while blacks, Asians and American Indians could not.

Affirmative action for whites was the guiding principle of segregation, Asian exclusion laws, and the theft of half of Mexico for the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny.

In recent history, affirmative action for whites motivated racially restrictive housing policies that helped 15 million white families procure homes with FHA loans from the 1930s to the '60s, while people of color were mostly excluded from the same programs.

In other words, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that white America is the biggest collective recipient of racial preference in the history of the cosmos. It has skewed our laws, shaped our public policy and helped create the glaring inequalities with which we still live..."

[aquart]

1. "(That is, those who had ancestors 'lucky' enough to survive the Middle Passage.) "

How many descendants are there of those NOT "lucky enough to survive the Middle Passage"?

[mojowork_n]

2. It's a much higher number than you'd want to begin to calculate.

All the children, kidnapped with their parents (or uncles and aunts), who made it across...

In some cases, maybe, because the elders sacrificed themselves.

It was the "largest forced migration in human history."

[aquart]

3. So those were ancestors who survived the Middle Passage.

Because only survivors bore children on American soil. The descendants in America are ALL descendants of survivors. They may be related to the people who died but they are descended from the people who LIVED.

Do you really wish they weren't here?

[aquart]

4. 13 million?

How many African towns built fortified walls to protect their citizens and children? Was it only in certain areas that they fought back or did everybody resist? Economically, how could agriculture continue if the people who worked the fields were stolen out of them?