Blackhacker

Andrew Hawkins, a descendant of the Britain’s first slave trader arrived in The Gambia, West Africa, in shackles and knelt before The Gambia’s Vice-President and thousands of Africans, to offer apologies, on behalf of his family.(link)

I am sure that there are those who would say, and have said already, that this man cannot apologize for what his ancestor did, because guilt cannot be inherited.

True, guilt can’t be inherited, but benefits, liabilities, freedoms, and responsibilities can. While he is not guilty of what his ancestor did, he and his whole family benefited, and you cannot divorce the benefit his family received from the institution of slavery, from responsibility of righting a very old wrong by saying “I’m Sorry.” Granted the gesture is only symbolic, but symbols have meanings. Just ask those who want to amend the Constitution to ban burning the American Flag, or the state of South Carolina which still flies the Confederate Flag.

Dap: Prof. Kim

This entry was posted on Friday, June 23rd, 2006 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Black Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.