>Was anybody else laughing last night when Lampley predicted a big upset
>by Davaryl "Touch of Sleep" Williamson against two time Gold Medalist
>Felix Savon,and then watched as his boy took a perfect righthand
>counter for the full count.That's been the highlight of the week.Great
>call,Lamps.

>>Was anybody else laughing last night when Lampley predicted a big upset
>>by Davaryl "Touch of Sleep" Williamson against two time Gold Medalist
>>Felix Savon,and then watched as his boy took a perfect righthand
>>counter for the full count.That's been the highlight of the week.Great
>>call,Lamps.

>Instead of ragging on HBO for a few minor mistakes (the biggie about Reid
>having been cleared up when Lamps stood up like a man about it), let's rejoice
>in the fact that we had almost 10 hours of some of the best amateur action
>around televised to us

luvwhte...@aol.com (LuvWhteWmn) wrote:
> This for the racist Ryan and the few Cock Roaches and Rat Butts that live in
> the cracks with him. Keep reading Ryan until you learn something
> ---
> Apologize For Slavery?
> Without an Apology, Blacks and Whites Will Never Get Along.

> An Opinion From Naomi Wolf
> for <A HREF="aol://4344:1725.topform2.14713410.576341260">George Magazine</A>

> We build memorials to what we want to remember, but a glance at our public
> monuments also shows just what we want to forget. Just off the Mall in
> Washington, D.C., there's a vast museum devoted to a holocaust that took place
> in Europe; near the Potomac, there's a beloved memorial to a slaughter that
> unfolded in Southeast Asia. But you'd have to look long and hard over the
> American landscape to find any prominent recognition of our own homegrown
> holocaust-of the 250 years during which up to one American in five was held,
> scourged, and bred as chattel.

> America has a willful amnesia about its slave past. Daily life in Colonial
> Williamsburg has been painstakingly re-created for the sake of tourists.
In the
> West, towns re-enact the days of the gold rush. But at the sites of the
> notorious slave markets---where thousands of African families were dispersed
> while sustaining the economies that supported white families---there is little
> or no commemoration. Ellis Island's makeover is a gleaming piece of historical
> preservation; but in Auburn, New York, the house of Harriet Tubman,
which was a
> famous station on the Underground Railroad, now lies in disrepair, its
> preservation left to the amateur efforts of local citizens who raise funds to
> maintain it. The slave quarters at Mount Vernon carefully explain the
> production of horseshoes and tallow: Tools are displayed, but not whips or
> shackles. No multimedia archives bother to chronicle the histories of, and
> relationships between, the enslaved Americans who served the father of our
> country. Little attention is paid to the bitter irony that while George
> Washington allowed his slaves to wed, the state of Virginia refused to legally
> recognize those unions.

> White America wants to forget. Two decades ago, the miniseries Roots was a
> major pop culture event because it gave names and faces to historical shadows,
> but its theme was palatable to whites only because it led, ultimately, to
> assimilation and redemption. In contrast, Steven Spielberg's recent
Amistad---a
> straightforward and unsettling account of the subjection of Africans in the
> slave trade-sank like a stone.

> Plenty of whites would say that memorializing our slave past is worse than
> unimportant, that it is destructive to the present. Controversy attended
> efforts to obtain congressional funding for a museum of slavery on the Mall.
> Southern struggles over the Confederate flag are routine and bitter. Whites'
> reactions to blacks' insistence on memorializing slavery are strong: "I didn't
> own any slaves. Why should I apologize?" as one recent caller to a talk-radio
> station characteristically argued. When congressman Tony P. Hall, a white
> Democrat from Ohio, raised the subject of an apology for slavery as a "step
> toward healing," he was deluged with criticism. President Clinton typically
> waffled on this issue when, last August, he chose to leave the decision on
> whether to apologize for slavery up to his race advisory board. Eight months
> later, inching toward a more complete gesture, he sort of apologized for the
> slave trade-in Africa, to the descendants of Africans who were left behind by
> it; not in America to the descendants of those who were captured and bred in
> captivity. "The United States has not always done the right thing by Africa,"
> he said with a truly farcical note of understatement. "Going back to the time
> before we were even a nation, European Americans received the fruits of the
> slave trade and we were wrong in that."

> Why does an apology matter? Why is memorializing our slave past important for
> the present? These things matter because without them, both sides remain
stuck.
> The mass denial of slavery by the dominant culture creates what denial creates
> in any dysfunctional family: inflamed articulation of the denied truth by the
> injured party. The more one family member silences, the more the other
> symbolically over emotes. When a black man was recently dragged to his
death by
> three whites in Jasper, Texas, whites quoted in news coverage swore that the
> savage murder was an isolated event, as if they were unconscious of the
history
> of lynching in towns just like theirs. In reaction to such denial, the
> African-Americans quoted were inclined toward conspiracy theories. "At this
> point," one woman reportedly said, "I'll believe anything."

> How would proper memorials of slavery heal this stalemate? Memorials reflect
> the depth of our caring. As a Jew, I know rage wells within me toward
> contemporary Germans when I see a cheap tin marker over a subway entrance in
> the heart of Berlin commemorating a roundup of local Jews. The slightness of
> the marker undermines my trust in my German peers---even though the historic
> tragedy is now distant from us.

> Apologies between groups matter for the same reason they matter between
> individuals in intimate relationships: They help keep the relationship
healthy.
> The recent wave of international apologies speaks to the power of this fact.
> Why should we care whether Switzerland returns what are often insignificant
> amounts of money to Jews? Not because of the money but because of the
lingering
> denial. Why did the pope's semi-apology for the Catholic Church's collusion
> with Nazism reinforce Jewish distrust of Catholicism? Precisely because of its
> tone of self-exoneration. In contrast, France's unstinting apology for its
> collusion with the Vichy government and Australia's wholehearted Sorry Day, in
> which the entire continent expresses regret for separating Aboriginal children
> from their parents, will both go a long way toward genuine healing-the kind we
> in this country should note with envy.

> Finally, particularly where children are concerned, apologies reflect
the value
> assigned to a given relationship. Without an apology from whites for the
> centuries during which black children were bought and sold, black kids grow up
> wondering if the dominant culture will ever value them enough for their
efforts
> within the system to really work. The fact is, conspiracies against black
> Americans have been real. Slavery itself was a conspiracy. So were the post-
> Reconstruction years, when whites banded together to cheat blacks out of fair
> prices for their cotton and white police forces conspired to frame black
> defendants. Without an apology that acknowledges this reality, black
> off-the-wall conspiracy theorizing will continue to assert itself. Hence, for
> example, the widespread beliefs that the CIA invented AIDS and that the LAPD
> framed O.J.

> An apology in this case is not an expression of personal guilt. It is an
> expression of regret, of shared sorrow. Popular spiritualist Marianne
> Williamson, who is often mocked for saying things America isn't ready to hear,
> conducts an experiment with her audiences: She has white people stand and
> apologize to blacks in the audience for racism and the harm it has inflicted
> upon their families and children. I watched this once, squirming with
> discomfort; I was sure it would be offensive, a sham, superficial, insulting,
> phony-all the things we fear when the issue of an apology comes up. To my
> astonishment, after the apology the mood in the room changed in a way I have
> never before felt in America: There was an almost tangible lightening of
> tension for both the blacks and the whites. It was a mood in which one could
> actually move on. As one old black woman said, with tears running down her
> cheeks, "I've been waiting my whole life to hear a white man say that to me."

> In a bad marriage, every little friction symbolizes the larger sense of being
> held in contempt or feeling betrayed. That's where we are now. In a good
> marriage, a fight, no matter how bad it gets, is just a fight. That's where an
> apology can take us. So in the interest of starting with what I can, I want to
> say, for the record, about this great harm: I am so sorry.

> ------------------------

> Naomi Wolf writes her colunmn <A
> HREF="aol://4344:1725.ge08wolf.14717430.585415316">American Dreams for <A
> HREF="aol://4344:1725.topform2.14713410.576341260">George Magazine.   Tell
> her what you think by <A HREF="mailto: AmericDrea">sending email</A>.

luvwhte...@aol.com (LuvWhteWmn) wrote:
> This for the racist Ryan and the few Cock Roaches and Rat Butts that live in
> the cracks with him. Keep reading Ryan until you learn something
> ---
> Apologize For Slavery?
> Without an Apology, Blacks and Whites Will Never Get Along.

> An Opinion From Naomi Wolf
> for <A HREF="aol://4344:1725.topform2.14713410.576341260">George Magazine</A>

> We build memorials to what we want to remember, but a glance at our public
> monuments also shows just what we want to forget. Just off the Mall in
> Washington, D.C., there's a vast museum devoted to a holocaust that took
place
> in Europe; near the Potomac, there's a beloved memorial to a slaughter that
> unfolded in Southeast Asia. But you'd have to look long and hard over the
> American landscape to find any prominent recognition of our own homegrown
> holocaust-of the 250 years during which up to one American in five was held,
> scourged, and bred as chattel.

> America has a willful amnesia about its slave past. Daily life in Colonial
> Williamsburg has been painstakingly re-created for the sake of tourists.
In the
> West, towns re-enact the days of the gold rush. But at the sites of the
> notorious slave markets---where thousands of African families were dispersed
> while sustaining the economies that supported white families---there is
little
> or no commemoration. Ellis Island's makeover is a gleaming piece of
historical
> preservation; but in Auburn, New York, the house of Harriet Tubman,
which was a
> famous station on the Underground Railroad, now lies in disrepair, its
> preservation left to the amateur efforts of local citizens who raise funds to
> maintain it. The slave quarters at Mount Vernon carefully explain the
> production of horseshoes and tallow: Tools are displayed, but not whips or
> shackles. No multimedia archives bother to chronicle the histories of, and
> relationships between, the enslaved Americans who served the father of our
> country. Little attention is paid to the bitter irony that while George
> Washington allowed his slaves to wed, the state of Virginia refused to
legally
> recognize those unions.

> White America wants to forget. Two decades ago, the miniseries Roots was a
> major pop culture event because it gave names and faces to historical
shadows,
> but its theme was palatable to whites only because it led, ultimately, to
> assimilation and redemption. In contrast, Steven Spielberg's recent
Amistad---a
> straightforward and unsettling account of the subjection of Africans in the
> slave trade-sank like a stone.

> Plenty of whites would say that memorializing our slave past is worse than
> unimportant, that it is destructive to the present. Controversy attended
> efforts to obtain congressional funding for a museum of slavery on the Mall.
> Southern struggles over the Confederate flag are routine and bitter. Whites'
> reactions to blacks' insistence on memorializing slavery are strong: "I
didn't
> own any slaves. Why should I apologize?" as one recent caller to a talk-radio
> station characteristically argued. When congressman Tony P. Hall, a white
> Democrat from Ohio, raised the subject of an apology for slavery as a "step
> toward healing," he was deluged with criticism. President Clinton typically
> waffled on this issue when, last August, he chose to leave the decision on
> whether to apologize for slavery up to his race advisory board. Eight months
> later, inching toward a more complete gesture, he sort of apologized for the
> slave trade-in Africa, to the descendants of Africans who were left behind by
> it; not in America to the descendants of those who were captured and bred in
> captivity. "The United States has not always done the right thing by Africa,"
> he said with a truly farcical note of understatement. "Going back to the time
> before we were even a nation, European Americans received the fruits of the
> slave trade and we were wrong in that."

> Why does an apology matter? Why is memorializing our slave past important for
> the present? These things matter because without them, both sides remain
stuck.
> The mass denial of slavery by the dominant culture creates what denial
creates
> in any dysfunctional family: inflamed articulation of the denied truth by the
> injured party. The more one family member silences, the more the other
> symbolically over emotes. When a black man was recently dragged to his
death by
> three whites in Jasper, Texas, whites quoted in news coverage swore that the
> savage murder was an isolated event, as if they were unconscious of the
history
> of lynching in towns just like theirs. In reaction to such denial, the
> African-Americans quoted were inclined toward conspiracy theories. "At this
> point," one woman reportedly said, "I'll believe anything."

> How would proper memorials of slavery heal this stalemate? Memorials reflect
> the depth of our caring. As a Jew, I know rage wells within me toward
> contemporary Germans when I see a cheap tin marker over a subway entrance in
> the heart of Berlin commemorating a roundup of local Jews. The slightness of
> the marker undermines my trust in my German peers---even though the historic
> tragedy is now distant from us.

> Apologies between groups matter for the same reason they matter between
> individuals in intimate relationships: They help keep the relationship
healthy.
> The recent wave of international apologies speaks to the power of this fact.
> Why should we care whether Switzerland returns what are often insignificant
> amounts of money to Jews? Not because of the money but because of the
lingering
> denial. Why did the pope's semi-apology for the Catholic Church's collusion
> with Nazism reinforce Jewish distrust of Catholicism? Precisely because of
its
> tone of self-exoneration. In contrast, France's unstinting apology for its
> collusion with the Vichy government and Australia's wholehearted Sorry Day,
in
> which the entire continent expresses regret for separating Aboriginal
children
> from their parents, will both go a long way toward genuine healing-the kind
we
> in this country should note with envy.

> Finally, particularly where children are concerned, apologies reflect
the value
> assigned to a given relationship. Without an apology from whites for the
> centuries during which black children were bought and sold, black kids grow
up
> wondering if the dominant culture will ever value them enough for their
efforts
> within the system to really work. The fact is, conspiracies against black
> Americans have been real. Slavery itself was a conspiracy. So were the post-
> Reconstruction years, when whites banded together to cheat blacks out of fair
> prices for their cotton and white police forces conspired to frame black
> defendants. Without an apology that acknowledges this reality, black
> off-the-wall conspiracy theorizing will continue to assert itself. Hence, for
> example, the widespread beliefs that the CIA invented AIDS and that the LAPD
> framed O.J.

> An apology in this case is not an expression of personal guilt. It is an
> expression of regret, of shared sorrow. Popular spiritualist Marianne
> Williamson, who is often mocked for saying things America isn't ready to
hear,
> conducts an experiment with her audiences: She has white people stand and
> apologize to blacks in the audience for racism and the harm it has inflicted
> upon their families and children. I watched this once, squirming with
> discomfort; I was sure it would be offensive, a sham, superficial, insulting,
> phony-all the things we fear when the issue of an apology comes up. To my
> astonishment, after the apology the mood in the room changed in a way I have
> never before felt in America: There was an almost tangible lightening of
> tension for both the blacks and the whites. It was a mood in which one could
> actually move on. As one old black woman said, with tears running down her
> cheeks, "I've been waiting my whole life to hear a white man say that to me."

> In a bad marriage, every little friction symbolizes the larger sense of being
> held in contempt or feeling betrayed. That's where we are now. In a good
> marriage, a fight, no matter how bad it gets, is just a fight. That's where
an
> apology can take us. So in the interest of starting with what I can, I want
to
> say, for the record, about this great harm: I am so sorry.

> ------------------------

> Naomi Wolf writes her colunmn <A
> HREF="aol://4344:1725.ge08wolf.14717430.585415316">American Dreams for <A
> HREF="aol://4344:1725.topform2.14713410.576341260">George Magazine.   Tell
> her what you think by <A HREF="mailto: AmericDrea">sending email</A>.