While I may say I’m sorry for what happened as a representative of the current country, I’m not going to personally apologize for something my ancestors had nothing to do with. Perhaps I should demand the country apologize for allowing things like indentured servitude of Irish immigrants, or the “No Paddys Need Apply” business practices.

Irish descendants owned slaves in the antebellum south, took part in the physical and cultural genocide of Native-Americans, and it was highly probable that they tried to differentiate themselves from being associated with African-Americans through various racial discriminatory acts to differentiate themselves from the African-American population they were sometimes conflated with by the ruling WASP elite.

Moreover, if you had any Irish ancestors in California during the 1880′s and ’90s, you may want to look up the role of Irish immigrants/descendants in racially motivated anti-Chinese violence in that state. First learned about this in a high school US history class. More interestingly, one Poli-sci instructor of Irish descent, on his own initiative, apologized for any part his ancestors may have had for that violence to the Chinese students in the class when discussion of the anti-Chinese exclusion acts and discrimination came up.

I’m not quite grasping the relationship of your response to my post.

What I am saying is, we should understand what things we bear some responsibility for, and what things we don’t.

I might need a clarifier. Are you saying that apologizing for being the beneficiary of oppression is the same as apologizing for the system that oppresses?

I don’t quite get what you mean by this question.

Also, just to be clear, I’m currently operating off the definition of apology as remorse for something wrong, not apology as a defense or justification of something done.

Remorse is tied to an wrongful act or wrongful omission of action, it is quiet different from either guilt or responsibility (both also separate concepts.) I cannot be remorseful if I have nothing to be remorseful for, as is the case with things like slavery and genocides of native peoples.

If I was German and my grandparents had been Nazis, I could have an inherited feeling of guilt (which is a subject for another discussion altogether) simply for being related to them, but that is not the same as guilt itself.

As an American now, I can and do feel responsibility (knowledge that my actions were part of and contributed to the larger context in which crimes were allowed to take place, and people were harmed) for what my country has done in my lifetime, while I was old enough to oppose it but failed to do so in a consequential way.

We can and should work against injustice, but it is important that we understand that a person can be guilty or responsible only for what she or he does or fails to do during her or his adult life, no more.

I’m not quite grasping the relationship of your response to my post.

I might need a clarifier. Are you saying that apologizing for being the beneficiary of oppression is the same as apologizing for the system that oppresses?

Also, just to be clear, I’m currently operating off the definition of apology as remorse for something wrong, not apology as a defense or justification of something done.

I’m thankful for every new day that I’ve not been picked up for being awol.

Oh wow. :(

Good luck to you.

[...] actively work against the system that hands out unearned privileges and benefits.

Nate, this is constructive. However, apologizing for something one already fights against (white privilege) and did not choose in the first place, is nonsense. Recognition, yes. Apology, no.

And furthermore, the argument that people should “apologize” for something like white privilege I believe dilutes and perverts the idea of collective responsibility. Same goes for the native peoples genocide argument.

Provided you are also an American citizen, Nate, you, like me, share part of the responsibility for the atrocities that have been committed by our government in Iraq and elsewhere –regardless of how or if we voted.

Why is this different than sharing responsibility for genocides of native peoples?

Two main reasons:

1) We were living, agency-possessing adults cognizant of what was happening during the run-up to the Iraq War and the beginning of the “War on Terror” –as well as all the events that have followed.

2) Despite how we voted, we did not do everything possible to force the abusive regime from power once its crimes became known to us. If we (and our fellow citizens ) had, the Bush Ad-ministration would have been gone by now, and those bearing criminal guilt would be facing justice.

I will say, “I am sorry for what was done in my name in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and here in the United States, and I am sorry for not doing all I could to stop it. I accept my role in the events that caused so much suffering to so many, and will do my part to atone for this.”

I will not say, “I am sorry other white people, who died long before I was born or my ancestors set foot in this country, committed vicious genocides against the native peoples of North America.”

Do you understand the difference?

I think if you currently have white privilege, regardless of what your ancestors actually did or went though, you are benefiting from what happened to the native peoples, as well as what happened to other peoples.

My southern ancestors were too poor to own slaves, but I, as a white person, still benefit from slavery and white privilege. I think it’s important personally recognize the benefits and privileges one has been given because of the oppression of others and not only apologize for it, actively work against the system that hands out unearned privileges and benefits.