US Apologies

We cannot prevent future horrors if we can’t all acknowledge the wrongdoing, nor can we simply “move on” from atrocities that continue to perpetuate inequality and trauma. A necessary step in acknowledging and making the future better than the past is formal recognition of the wrongdoing, because collective responsibility and remedial action is what makes the future brighter.

The U.S. government has apologized for six events in its almost two and a half centuries, which are as follows:

1- In 1983, the federal government apologized for hiding Nazi war criminal, Klaus Barbie, during World War II. The “butcher of Lyon” was sent to France earlier that year for trial.

2- In 1988, President Ronald Reagan apologized for Executive Order 9066, which sentenced most Japanese-Americans in the West to life in internment camps for most of WWII.

3- In 1993, the U.S. Congress apologized for its involvement in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, which was orchestrated by American merchants and aided by the U.S. Marines.

4- In 1997, President Bill Clinton apologized for the Tuskegee Experiment. Starting in WWII, researchers in Alabama with the U.S. Public Health Service lied to black men who were expecting treatment for syphilis, instead giving them free meals and burials. Over 40 years, 399 men were untreated and unaware that they were subjects.

5- In 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives apologized for slavery and Jim Crow laws, symbolically acknowledging their active oppression of black Americans.

6- In 2009, the U.S. apologized for the treatment of Native Americans, in the “Defense Appropriations Act of 2010.” In Section 8113: “Apology to Native Peoples of the United States” on page 45 of 67, the U.S. “expresses its regret for the ramifications of former wrongs.”

The U.S. has irreparably damaged millions of lives and hundreds of communities in our 250 year-long history of colonizing and imperializing. As a nation, we continue to ignore and contest the long-term effects of systemic racism, sexism, ableism, and homophobia, which only serves to re-traumatize and stigmatize marginalized groups.

These apologies are a small, poor example of the relatively limited attempts of the U.S. as a whole to recognize, repair, and improve. Only three of these six apologies have come with monetary compensation or change, and six apologies in a 250-year history riddled with malfeasance is unacceptable. The first step to righting any wrong is acceptance. The U.S. must take responsibility for its wrongs before there can be any hope to repair them, because if the problems aren’t shown as problems, there will be no support. The children at the border in internment camps much like those of the Japanese decades earlier needs to stop. The Equal Rights Amendment must be passed, abortion rights expanded. The U.S. needs to apologize to Black Americans for all that they have been through and continue to go through, with fears of shooting, inequality, and hate. America is far from perfect, as any other nation on this Earth, but that’s no excuse to accept its flaws. We must move forward as a nation and acknowledge the pain we have inflicted on others. We need apologies, followed by active efforts for change. The end of internment camps at the border. The passing of the ERA. Increasing funding for social workers, public programs, and access to healthcare, housing, and employment to equal the footing of Black Americans. More apologies are only the beginning, but the U.S. must begin.

Sources:

Smithsonian Magazine Article on U.S. Apologies

Acknowledgement of U.S. Role in Hiding Klaus Barbie: Klaus Barbie and the U.S. Government: A Report to the Attorney General of the United States

Apology to Japanese Americans: Ronald Reagan’s “Remarks on Signing the Bill Providing Restitution for the Wartime Internment of Japanese American Civilians”

Apology to the Victims of the Tuskegee Experiment: Bill Clinton’s “Remarks by the President in Apology for Study Done in Tuskegee”

Apology to Native Hawaiians: Statute 107 (Public Law 103-150, Joint Resolution)

Apology to Black Americans: House Resolution 194 – Apologizing for the Enslavement and Racial Segregation of African Americans

Apology to Native Americans: Defense Appropriations Act of 2010

Further Reading:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia Article on Klaus Barbie

The Chandler Museum has archived their past exhibit, Gaman, on the Japanese internment camps in Arizona, linked here.

National Education Association Article on the Effects of the United State’s Occupation, Invasion, and Annexation of Hawaii