More on Apologies

I read a great column in Sunday’s D&C that demands my attention. Without in any way paraphrasing or plagiarizing her words, I feel a deep responsibility to cast the writer’s thoughts further into the world. Teresa Schreiber Werth, retired from a career in communications, had a lot to share about politically correct but purposely hidden public apologies.

          It seems the Native American Apology Resolution, a resolution signed into law in 2020, can only be found within that year’s Defense Appropriation Act. (pg. 45) Schreiber-Werth tells us the Bill was passed, “to acknowledge a long history of depredations and ill-conceived policies by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes.” She goes on to say it, “apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment and neglect inflicted on Native People by citizens of the United States.”

          Who knew that this Resolution was passed? What amount of public confession ever reached our eyes and ears or those of Native Peoples?

          On sea shores up and down America’s Eastern Seaboard those who came to the continent well before the European Explorers watched ships arrive and, to a great extent, welcomed their arrivals. Since that time we – of European descent — have promised and broken our promises, negotiated and negated contract terms, enforced new concepts of living and new beliefs in matters of religion, and brought new diseases that destroyed their bodies. We have ignored the eons of acquired knowledge they could offer and cast aside elements of a way-of-life that could have brought survival for many of our ancestors. This did not all occur only at the time of our arrival but has been repeated, generation after generation, even up to the present.

          In my opinion, the Nation’s apology should have been clearly made in a public setting or ceremony, not within a totally unrelated document that carries on the business of running our Country. The Indignant Peoples deserve to hear us say, “We goofed. We are sorry.” They deserve to have a day on which we publially apologize out-loud for our failure to be fair, for our racism and our discriminatory practices, for our failure to “love our neighbor as ourselves”. They deserve to have a special time set aside when they can show what we could have been taught from the very beginning of Colonialism.

          And, by the way, Teresa Schreiber Werth reminds us that we have a responsibility to acknowledge the wrongs committed and long term lack of love for so many others (descendants of slaves, Japanese Americans, those of Hispanic heritage, Native Hawaiians).

          So, take note . . . pay attention to those who rightfully seek equal rights and spread the word. We, of European descent, owe them that much.