40 Acres and a Mule...the 2009 Equivalent or SOMETHING??

Pac really has little to do with this post but since his birthday just passed on June 16th, I didn't see a problem with posting it. This post does have everything to do with the mule, land, and Black family who he shares the photograph with though. As we know, the term "forty acres and a mule" derived from General Sherman's orders after the Cival War declaring that the formerly enslaved Blacks would receive that amount a land and a mule to cultivate it. After Abe Lincoln fell victim to an assassin's bullet, the new President, Andrew Johnson revoked Gen. Sherman's orders. Shyt hasn't been the same since.
I ran across this article on CNN.com and didn't really know what to think about it:

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for the wrongs of slavery.

The nonbinding resolution sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is similar to a House resolution adopted last year that acknowledged the wrongs of slavery but offered no reparations. The House will have to vote on the issue again because the composition of that chamber changed after last November's elections.

The resolution was approved on a voice vote.

Because it is nonbinding, it does not have to be forwarded to the president for his signature.

Several states have passed similar resolutions, but the House resolution was the first time a branch of the federal government did so.

Harkin's resolution "acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery, and Jim Crow laws," and "apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws."

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enacted mostly in U.S. Southern and border states between the 1870s and 1965 that denied African-Americans the right to vote and other civil liberties, as well as legally segregated them from whites.

Some members of the African-American community have called on lawmakers to give cash payments or other financial benefits to descendants of slaves as compensation for the suffering caused by slavery."

My understanding is that they're voting on whether or not the federal government should issue an official apology to the descendants of slaves who were essential in building this nation to be the powerful world leader what it is today. Some say that "time heals wounds" and I tend to agree with this statement in many aspects. This isn't one of them. The enslaving of Black people has been legally abolished for a little over a century and the Jim Crow laws that hunted Blacks after that have for the most part been eradicated in the past half century or so. *NOTE: THIS IS NOT A LONG TIME AT ALL* Affirmative action programs which mostly help women and OTHER minorities who are NOT Black were designed to even up the playing field in the realms of education and employment. Welfare and other forms of government assistance are often looked at by some as the government's way of helping out unprivileged Blacks who may not have the same opportunities as whites, however, the great majority of recipients are white. In essence, Blacks have never received their "forty acres and a mule" and have always been at a high disadvantage in the United States of America.

Of course some may point out the election of President Barack Hussein Obama as a sign that Blacks are on equal grounds as whites and can do whatever they want as long as they work hard. After the election, I even heard a plethora of Blacks talking about, "There's no excuse now, we have to step our game up...we got a Black president." I'm calling bullshyt. Of course we have to "step our game up" (in which we have BEEN in many ways...not so much in others), but that has always been the focus of the Black community for the most part. So my problem with this is that Blacks have BEEN working hard and struggling...to little avail. The majority of wealth in this country is passed down from generation to generation and it has little to do with much else. Of course there are many success stories of people pulling themselves up from their bootstraps and becoming "successful", but that's FAR from the majority when it comes to people who are descendants of slaves and victims of America's racist laws. This is not an excuse. It's fact. It's no doubt that the descendants of the white slave owners are doing a whole lot better than the descendants of slaves a century and a half after they were considered "free". That's common sense and it's inevitable. If you can't respect that, your whole perceptive is wack.

I say all that to say if you think that one group of people who have been discriminated against for over four centuries and is STILL considered second-class citizens in the "free world" is EQUAL to another group who haven't experienced any of that, you're sadly mistaken.

An apology from the federal government is definitely well overdue, but without any action behind the statement, it's bullshyt.

Do you feel like descendants of slaves should be compensated, and if so, how?