Austin Dragon: No apologies necessary for slavery

Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer wants the state of California to apologize for slavery, despite the fact that, as he writes, California was never a slave state.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard this sort of insanity – like California city councils that open their meetings not with the Pledge of Allegiance but with an apology for living on “stolen” Native American land. These speakers have no intention of leaving the land, and less interest in returning what they say is stolen. It just makes them feel good to say a thing that costs them nothing. 

So even though it won’t cost me money to apologize for slavery, I won’t do it – and I’m black. 

Jones-Sawyer cited a “painful legacy of slavery.” What are you talking about? There is literally no such thing. My parents emigrated to the United States from the West Indies in 1967, one year before both Dr. Martin Luther King and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Even though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation in America, it still existed in parts of the South into the end of the 1960s. But let’s be clear, despite that evil, my parents came here, like so many other immigrants, because the opportunities were still superior to the places they’d.

They settled in Brooklyn, New York. My father worked as a taxi driver. In the 1970s, that was more dangerous than being a cop. My mother started her career working in hospitals and would become a nurse. Soon, my parents were able to buy their own store. By 1980, we’d moved to the suburbs of Long Island – only the second Black family to move into the neighborhood. I didn’t realize it at the time, but yes, we desegregated the town. What problems did we have? None. 

My father opened a new store within walking distance of our home. My mother continued her career as an RN. What problems did I have as I walked to school? None. 

In the 18 years that my parents raised me, I never heard the term “legacy of slavery.” My parents had witnessed and experienced real racism in America. But I never heard them utter the words “racism” or “racist.” Like everyone else, they were too busy living their lives and raising their family to give time to such nonsense. They helped create a better America through their actions – through their work and, more importantly, their children. 

Among the most offensive things about proposals like Jones-Sawyer’s is that they imply there was no Civil Rights Movement at all. He doesn’t just distort history; he erases it. He waves off the fact that California was a free state in order to say that some people in some places may have smuggled slaves into California in the first decade of our statehood after 1850. The First Civil Rights Movement, culminating in the Civil War, ended slavery in America in 1865. The Second Civil Rights Movement ended racial segregation in America in 1964. That’s 159 and 60 years ago, respectively.

Note to the assemblyman: The good guys won. “Apologies” not only disrespect my parents but the scores of justice warriors, the Democrats, Republicans, socialists, independents, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, and more who risked life and livelihood to end these evils. Many even died for the cause.

The “legacy of slavery” is of no significance. The legacy of triumph is of magnificent importance.

Los Angeles—the second largest city in the nation—elected Tom Bradley, its first black mayor, in 1973. If that’s not good enough for you, Wheatland, California, a very white town in a very white state, elected its first black mayor, Edward Parker Duplex, in 1888. For 15 years beginning in 1980, another black man, Willie Brown, was the most powerful politician in Sacramento as the Speaker of the State Assembly. He’d probably still be there (even at age 90) if it weren’t for the passage of term limits in 1995. Again, what legacy of slavery?

People like Jones-Sawyer will say my attitude is “conservative” or “right wing.” I’d note that his attitude is anything but liberal. 

But the world is not all politics and politicians. Growing up, I was influenced by fictional portrayals of the future in such shows as the original Star Trek, the original Battlestar Galactica, and the original Star Wars (not to be confused with the crap using its name these days). Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry wasn’t just liberal. He was more likely a socialist. In the future he depicted there was no race. The lovely, brilliant Uhura (played with sophistication and grace by actress Nichelle Nichols) was an equal member of the bridge crew. (In the animated series that followed, she was captain of the USS Enterprise in one episode in 1973!) 

When Lando Calrissian (played by Billy Dee Williams) strolled onto the screen as the leader of the Cloud City in “The Empire Strikes Back,” no one in the movie theater where I saw it said, “What’s the black guy doing there?” All of us kids – black, white, whatever – wanted to be Lando. 

On television, Norman Lear (a very liberal man) dominated the ratings with shows like “Sanford and Son,” “All in the Family,” and “The Jeffersons.” The subtext in these shows was that racism is stupid, and only stupid people focus on race.

There are ethical questions in abundance about Jones-Sawyer’s apology campaign. First, of course, there’s the problem of asking people to apologize for a crime they didn’t commit. Then there’s the problem of Jones-Sawyer’s proposal to make cash payments a part of that equation. The people paying these reparations will necessarily include a second-generation Central American Hispanic mom in Los Angeles, a Vietnamese business owner in Orange County’s or San Jose’s Little Saigons, and the Gen Z white college grad born in 2000. 

And the black people eligible for reparation payments? Will Smith’s kids? Puff Daddy’s kids? Jay-Z and Beyonce’s? Wealthy blacks in general? Blacks who, like my parents, emigrated from other countries? Blacks who arrived more recently from Africa? And what American blacks whose black ancestors owned slaves? 

It feels beyond stupid to have to point out the absurdity of this proposal and Jones-Sawyer’s obsession slavery and the color of people’s skin. 

California has real problems, and though they grow steadily worse we don’t elect serious people to deal with them. People aren’t fleeing California because of nineteenth-century slavery. They’re leaving because of the deteriorating quality of life, the crime, the bad schools, the anti-business and entrepreneurial policies, or because they simply cannot afford to live here anymore. Blacks, like other Californians, are fleeing the state because they can’t even afford to live safely in their own neighborhoods or buy a home. These—not a “legacy of slavery”—are the problems of today.

To anticipate your partisan bias, take all the Republicans, Independents, Green Party, and Libertarians and put them off to the side. California’s Democrat elites have been in total control of the state since 2010 without any challenge or real opposition. Their collective failure to solve today’s problems is destroying the lives of the average Democrat, including black residents. It’s time to stop blaming dead slave owners from centuries ago for the Democratic majority’s incompetence and apathy today.

No one has to apologize for slavery of any race. To coin a phrase from the great black American actor, film producer, civil rights pioneer, Morgan Freeman: “Stop talking about it.” I’ll add mine: “Stop destroying California with your nonsense!”

Austin Dragon is a science fiction author and educator.