I've got no problem with this, with a few reservations.
The US Senate approved a fiercely worded resolution on Thursday formally apologizing for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery" of African-Americans.
Slavery is a nasty thing. There have been times in history when slavery hasn't been the worst thing going (with the alternative being extremely nasty conditions or death), but that will never change the fact that it was treating people as chattels, something that should never happen. The US in particular really should feel guilty about its role, because it was continued here long after countries like Britain had decided that it was a morally obnoxious thing and banned it. Indeed, in my non-American outsider's opinion, the reason why civil rights in USA is such a big deal is because USA was nasty to its folk of color for so much longer than the rest of the western world. USA doesn't even get to use the "oh, well everyone was doing it" excuse.
Now for the reservations, and they're biggies.
A) On behalf of whom exactly is the Senate apologizing? All citizens of USA? Because Asian-Americans should feel sorry for the fact that their ancestors had nothing whatsoever to do with the trade in African slaves? Or what? But OK ... I'll give them a pass on this. The collective entity that is the "state" apologizes.
B) When will almost all countries in Africa apologize? After all, they were the ones who sold the slaves. Many of the peoples now in Africa are in Africa precisely because they were on the victorious end of the various conflicts that led to the vanquished being sold to the slave traders. If the buyers need to apologize, then surely the sellers do too?
C) Carrying on from point b, President Obama's ancestors weren't slaves, but there's a pretty good chance that at least some of them were involved in some way in the sale of slaves either to the Americas or to the Middle East. So when will Obama apologize, not on behalf of USA, but personally for the inhumanity of his African ancestors?
D) The last is not so much a reservation, but a question for which I do not have an answer. Which historical atrocities need to be apologized for, and which don't? Should France be apologizing for the invasion of England by the Normans, and the centuries of oppression of the Anglo-Saxons? Should China be apologizing to Korea and Vietnam for the periods of occupation? Should Russia be apologizing for serfdom? Should Mexico be apologizing for the conquests by the Aztecs, and their oppression of many other peoples both within the modern state of Mexico and elsewhere? What makes some historical crimes things that the modern state must apologize for, and what excludes other crimes?
