Prologue: Writing the Unwritable Post

So let's talk about torture.

It's been in the news for a while now, and has quickly become a defining issue of the last 9 years: legally, politically, and ethically. It fairly clogs the news cycles on some days – the media trots out questions and talking points, which ripple into the morning shows, local papers, and countless web sites:

• Is it right or wrong?
• Who authorized what?
• Who knew or didn’t know, and how much?
• Republicans versus Democrats.
• Which religious demographics support it or don’t.
• How America + Torture = Nazi Germany.

Tough stuff. And I’ve been ruminating on it the entire time; trying to decide if I could blog about it. I mean, it’s obviously a provocative topic – it riles and offends people, and triggers family-event-destroying blowouts – but it's dense, and impenetrably gray. I want to weigh in; I want to entice others to the public debate, and I want to enrich the public dialog. But it's a window that's hard to see through. Even in the brightest light of human outrage, the image beyond the glass is shadowy, and indistinct. How do we define torture? Is this it, or is that it? Why is it being used? Does it work? Look as I might, I can't get to a clear picture. And if there's one thing I like when I start a post, it's a clear picture.

When we discuss things like racism, or gun violence, or whether drugs should be legalized, there are plenty of folks with first-hand knowledge, and even more with second- or third-hand knowledge. Mention torture, and suddenly almost no one is an expert (even if they have an opinion). The folks “in the know” are people most of us will never meet. Many are deliberately hidden from the world, so even if you do know them, you don't know you know them. This makes torture a unique consideration to the common man. How do you genuinely contemplate something that you know nothing about? If you're a FrankSpot reader, you know that I lament that people generally opine (and take up fortified positions) in relative ignorance, but this topic is unique in that there really isn't any way for the average person to contemplate it with a foundation of experience. By default (and lucky for all of us), we lack the ability to speak on the topic from place of knowledge. Everything we think we know is anecdotal. That's one of the things that made it so hard for me to put words around this topic. What do I really know about torture?

But the story is still very much in the minds and in the media, and I’m drawn to it because it speaks to our fundamental humanity. I want to explore the philosophical notions that underpin the outrage, and the real world considerations of torture’s application and efficacy. Unfortunately, it more and more seems that every measuring stick is insufficient, and there’s a good chance that the only thing likely to be borne of the debate…is more debate. That poses a special and significant challenge for me: what do philosophers do with a conundrum like this? What if there is no final answer? No absolute right or wrong? No way to build true consensus? What if we just can’t solve this one?

These questions dogged me every time I tried to put words to page. What follows is my wholehearted attempt to make sense of it all.

Defining the Indefinable

What is torture?

As I mentioned above, the main problem with this discussion is that torture isn't one easily definable thing. It's a word open wider to interpretation and semantics than most in our language. Sure, there's a dictionary entry, but as I survey the outrage of everyone touched by the topic, it’s clear that that the “official definition” has barely informed the debate. It turns out, instead, that the notion of torture is as personal and subjective a thing as anything out there. People define it through a combination of religious, moral, and ethical beliefs, political affiliations, gut reactions, and their own sense of place in the world. So the dictionary entry doesn’t add any meaningful text to the discussion. What is torture? It’s whatever the debaters – the observer, the victim, the state enemy, the foreign government, the special interest group – want it to be. If we were discussing torture as a philosophical exercise, or a re-examination of unfortunate history, we could stop there. And it wouldn’t matter that we couldn’t reach a consensus. But the debate has changed: it is no longer a lukewarm ethics discussion, but an urgent legal issue. That brings us to the second problem:

The Legal Definition

In a society of laws (which I’m glad I live in, despite the sometimes rickety condition of our legal system), we classify specific behaviors as illegal. It makes sense if we want to surround ourselves with safety and order. But, there’s a catch, and it’s the same one that makes the torture debate so hard to resolve: what measuring stick do we use? This is an important consideration in any debate, and doubly so in this one. Laws require both a proverbial watermark as a starting point – a consensus-based standard to be used any time we perceive a transgression – and very specific wording. Like it or not, laws aren’t meant to be flexible; and well-written ones don’t leave much room for interpretation (even if they are dense with legalese and abstraction). That’s an important protection for us as citizens. (And yes, that creates a host of other issues, but I’ll save that for another blog entry.) Laws need to be specific if they are to be understood and enforced fairly. This applies to simple stuff – don’t take something from a store without paying for it – and deep, unwieldy stuff like torture. So, regardless of your personal feelings, torture needs a legal definition if we’re going to address it as a society. That means specifics, examples – dictionary entries. It means a legal consensus even when there is no philosophical one. And to be clear: it can’t be a moving target.

Let’s stop on that for a second, just to make sure we’re all on the same page. Torture – from a legal standpoint – has to be strictly defined. That means one clearly stated description of what constitutes torture. It can include a laundry list of citations and examples, but the definition has to be finite. It has to end. If you look to the law, you’ll find that there’s already a legal definition in place. That’s a key problem with the current debate: people keep forgetting (or ignoring) that definition in favor of their personal outrage, and want to categorize as torture treatments that currently fall outside the legal definition. In itself, that’s a noble pursuit. Something has rankled us, and we want the law to be rewritten so that thing can’t happen again. But, the problem is further complicated here by the public's need to punish someone: it’s not good enough to rewrite the law for tomorrow. People want to bend the law to create a retroactive illegality. An interesting idea, I suppose, but impractical at best, a path to absolute ruin at worst. As a rule, we don’t criminalize past behavior, only future behavior. Call it a conceit to the linear, forward-only nature of time’s passage – and to our basic inability to predict which of today’s legal behaviors would land us in the electric chair tomorrow. It’s a basic protection we have to embrace: what you did yesterday might become illegal tomorrow, but you won’t be prosecuted because it was legal when you did it.

Now some people argue here that the Bush administration’s lawyers deliberately exploited the finite nature of legal language to “get away with” treatments that don’t violate the letter of the law – but still cross into unethical/philosophically shaky behaviors we’ve retroactively classified as torture. They’re right, but skirting the law isn’t actually illegal. As despicable as it seems in this context, “going around the law” is just another part of the legal process. Those lawyers aren’t the first or only ones to do it. It happens every day, sometimes in our favor, sometimes to our detriment. That is a conceit to the vagaries of our language, and a basic fact of life. I recently wrote a post about the drive to legalize drugs in America, and I posited that every regulation (or law) breeds loopholes. This is the same problem. If you don’t list smacking someone in the head with a rolled up magazine as torture – or have intersecting laws that constrain any of the constituents of that treatment – then it’s legally not torture. And guess what – it’s not just lawyers and government officials who exploit that fact. Almost everyone you know does too (in some form), and so do you. It’s obviously not in the same vein as torture, but the principle is the same. We have imperfect language, so we have imperfect laws. The best – and some would say smartest – thing we can do, is use history and better language to help us redraw ineffective and incomplete laws. In this case, we can rewrite torture laws to include what was done to those alleged terrorists; add as many new clauses and behaviors as we like – dig into history books, and even popular fiction, and litter the legal definition with examples. We’ll be behind the curve, but we can be assured that those specific tactics will be illegal the next time they are used.

Which brings us to:

The Three Killer Questions: Efficacy, Intent, and Degree

Despite the basic disagreements about what specifically constitutes torture, there is one common belief that seems to resonate throughout the national debate, and across many international borders: torture itself is bad. It's something only bad people or bad countries do. Proof of that belief is found in treaties and pledges, and in the outspoken condemnation of those who torture. But just below the surface, beneath the philosophical condemnation of the act, lies the tricky question of efficacy. Does torture ever work? If you follow the national headlines, or read books like Daniel P. Maddix’s The History of Torture, you probably get the idea that it doesn’t. And if the national uproar is an indication, we don’t want it to work.

But there’s an important question that lingers, even if it’s fully obscured by the shining spotlight: what if it does work?

I know that’s a scary question. It sets people’s hair on end, and makes people reach for antacids, or their bibles, or the television remote. But, what if torture isn't the ineffective black hole of the popular belief? Sure, you can point to what happens when you torture an ignorant someone for information: they’ll say anything to stop the torture, and none of it is worth the breath it arrived on. But what happens when you torture a person who actually has the information you need? This is an interesting point that comes out of the Bush administration: they say that “harsh interrogation” produced actionable intelligence. Regardless of your personal feelings, if it’s true, then it’s a fact that counts in the reality of the world, and has to count in our debate. And it begs the larger question: how much is a life, or a handful of lives, or a way of life worth? How far would/should we go to secure something important for ourselves? What happens when talking simply doesn’t work, and when the clock is already ticking? I know this is dangerous water, but aren’t these questions valid parts of the debate? Some people argue that the loss we stand to suffer (personally or nationally) is insubstantial compared to the moral breach we commit when we abandon talking in favor of inflicting pain. They could be right. I think it's probably a question for the ages, and certainly for the people that have already lost something or someone because of our adherence to principle over the need for positive results.

Lets focus on that for a moment: why does anyone use torture? I’ve been exploring the efficacy question, but I haven’t really touched on the purpose question. Like efficacy, it’s an important thing to explore.

As I’ve absorbed the national commentary, I’ve noticed that there are lots of different ideas about why we used those interrogation techniques in the first place. A good portion of people accept that they were used to obtain information – some about yesterday, but most about tomorrow. Some people think it was to extract confessions – like the Viet Cong used, a way to demoralize the prisoner’s parent nation – or to exact punishment, or gleefully inflict pain on inferior races. They evoke images of World War 2 Japan and Nazi Germany. Provocative stuff, to be sure; more importantly, a prompt to discuss intent – to examine if and how the intent of the torturer factors into our considerations. Does a lack of sadistic intent count in the torturer’s favor? Is it a more acceptable practice if torture is used strictly to garner information, and not applied with malice or hatred? If it’s an unfortunate escalation, in situations where gentler methods don’t produce the needed results? If it’s applied clinically, dispassionately?

And what about degrees? As we build our new legal and national definition of torture, does degree count for something? Should we compare types of harsh treatments? Is that informative as we draw our lines? Is a slap as bad as genital electrocution? Is a flushed holy book as bad as pliers-based fingernail extraction? Is being forced into a naked human pyramid, or being deprived of sleep, as bad as being beaten lame with batons and 2x4s? If we take degrees into consideration, don’t we run the risk of more unethical treatments slipping through the legal cracks? If we ignore degrees, aren’t we opening the doors of interpretation so wide that our “enemies” can complain that restricting access to cable TV and alcohol in prison is just as harsh as crushing their fingers in drill presses? How do we factor in the common sense comparisons without opening the door too wide, or shutting it too tightly, and without ignoring something key? Is there even an answer?

Sudden Epilogue: A FrankSpot First

So, I’ve just asked a bunch of questions, and I know it seems like I have a lot more ground to cover. But I’m not going to cover it. As unlikely and abrupt as it seems, I’m going to end here – after two months, and 2500 difficult words. As I predicted in my prologue, I haven’t found any answers on this. Not for myself, not for my readers, and certainly not for the national debate. Instead, after all this time and typing, I’ve become exhausted by the topic. I’m truly at a loss to draw some profound overarching conclusion, or make any valid suggestions on how to address the ongoing issue. I can’t even answer most of the questions I’ve raised here. At least not definitively, and not in the space of a single post. The most I can do is ask my readers to keep this post in mind as they add their voices to the debate. I hope they’ll remember that religion, ethnicity, age, political belief, and level of education impact how people feel about torture; so do being touched by loss, or war, or terrorism, or fearing for the lives of people loved. I hope they’ll remember that the law is an important tool – especially in this debate – but one that shouldn’t be used for revenge, or to apply retroactive justice. And I hope they’ll remember that – even without one we can see from here – the pursuit of an answer is still important. As we strive, we grow; and as we learn, we change. Hopefully, all for the better.

Peace.

Election Night is almost here. I'm actually watching the clock count down as I write this post. And I'm feeling pretty grim. If you've been following The Frank Spot, you'll know that I recently lamented the state of politics in America – specifically the rough and brutish political discourse of my own party. As we get closer to Election Night, I can't help but see the spreading lack of civility – and, in fact, the rise of near-fanaticism – that grips the country. Behavior I thought (hoped!) might have been limited to my own party's highly contentious primary race, has spilled into the national forum. I'm now held in thrall by the spectacle of it as it burns across a once lush democratic horizon. This is unlike any election to which I've been knowing witness and participant. We don't just need change in American government – we need a fire extinguisher. And, oh, yes, for a lot of people to get a clue.

The American political system – indeed the American society – is supposed to be a model of the best: our citizenry, enlightened and altruistic; our politicians, role models; our process, unbreakable. But instead of the triumph of a dream in action, I hear the shredding gears of our society grinding on each other. You may have blocked it – relegated it to background noise, or dismissed it as "people frightened of...something", or even heralded it as the promise of a new and better tomorrow – but it's a harsh and discordant sound. And it speaks what I consider an important truth for our time.

We're ignorant and deliberately angry. We've sabotaged ourselves. And we now stand to lose what we prize in the fires we set.

My Opinion is the Only Right One: The Cry of an Ugly American

It all comes down this one thing: too many people think they're absolutely right, and anyone who disagrees is wrong, and even dangerous. It's as if the vagaries of the world have been revealed to them, and they have discovered the elusive and uniting answers: it's their candidate, their political belief, their judgment that is best. It's the path to radicalism I mentioned in my article on PETA; the path where strength of conviction overshadows quality of belief:

"I believe so strongly, that I must be right. No one could possibly believe something else! And I will make them see..."

Does that kind of rhetoric sound familiar? If not, page through some history books. Humanity's past is plagued with that kind of thinking. And it is one of the most dangerous paths for 21st century America.

Fixing It (Or: Geez, Frank, do you just want to insult us, or do you have some wisdom to impart?)

If you're wondering, I know how ominous my words sound. I impart such weight upon them because of how deeply American behavior affects me. You may not realize it, but it affects you too. Probably in ways some people would never notice, or understand. It affects our economy, our standing in the world, our personal lives, our sense of freedom, and our belief in our ability to think and act in our own best interests. I'm hard on the world, because wry insight and smatterings of sarcasm aren't always sufficient to spark necessary introspection, or foment real change. As you read on, if you read on, I hope you'll start to consider what stokes the rage and activism in the people around you, and possibly see the obvious path back to sanity.

The Silly Stuff (Or: Oh...my...GOD...Could these things BE any less important?)

It's a basic human component: to have an opinion. You can care about anything you want. In America, you can say (almost) anything you want. I don't want to interfere with that. But people look awfully silly when they cite nonsense in their political discussions, or when they deliberately base important opinions on insignificant things. That silliness gets dangerous when it becomes the basis for activism and voting choices, and I see that all around. Here are some top contenders for things people really seem to care about, but probably shouldn't:

Obama's Middle Name is Hussein
Well, that clinches it for me. We all know that your middle name says EVERYTHING about who you are as a person; including what you'll do if you reach the White House. Sorry, all you guys with middle names like Muriel or Adolph.

The truth is that you'd probably have better luck predicting Obama's future presidential decisions with a Magic Eight Ball or a cupful of tea leaves (with a wonky cross that says that your guy will muck up the country, but you'll be happy about it...) than by using his middle name as prophecy. Ultimately, it's not much of a predictor at all. It should be sitting in the debunked pile alongside Phrenology and anything uttered by a mechanical Gypsy fortune-teller on an Atlantic City boardwalk. Want to predict what kind of decisions he'll make? Look at his writings and his record, and listen to what he says. (But even so, keep in mind that past behavior and campaign speeches are, at best, uneven predictors of future actions...)

John McCain is Old and Could Die Soon
Because only old people can die soon. Nobody young can ever die. Sorry, JFK, you made a mistake taking that bullet in Dallas.

The truth – for those who couldn't dig it out of the sarcasm – is that anyone can die, anytime. Health, wealth, and status be damned. People die when they die. And it's not usually convenient for anyone involved. To put it in more perspective, Obama and Biden could win handily, and through a series of fatal mishaps in January, Nancy Pelosi could become President. February 2, 2009: somebody that NOBODY voted for is redecorating the Lincoln Bedroom and reading up on Area 51.

The Republicans Spent $150,000 on Sarah Palin's "Look"
Who cares? It's not your money. Do you get angry when your neighbor buys an expensive vase to put in his loo?

The truth is that this is so irrelevant, I don't even need to make a joke about it. Shame on you if this helps you decide which lever to pull.

The Important Stuff (Or Why Don't You Care About That?)

So, there people are, making life-changing – country-changing – decisions based (at least partly) on unimportant drivel, and (at least partly) ignoring some really important facts. I can't say that acknowledging these issues would solve anything, but how your candidate deals with them – understands them – is an important aspect of the President he will become. When you consider your vote, consider these points:

The Economy Goes the Way it Goes, and it Doesn't Matter Who's President
A lot of pundits like to lay the current financial crisis at the feet of the President (and his administration). This is such a misleading oversimplification, and so many people seem to believe it. I urge all of you in this camp to ditch your dog-eared pamphlets on the The Butterfly Effect, and read up on real causal relationships. Better yet, take an economics class. You'll find our economy is complicated beyond belief, based heavily in greed, faith, and luck, and influenced only slightly by the President's daily routine.

The truth is that the market rises or falls on the backs and actions of consumers, investors, lenders, and speculators. Yes, the government contributes to the moods and actions of those people, but at about the same level as a bad haircut affects your grocery bill. Fact: The economy is as healthy or sick as we make it. Ironically, just like the government.

Wealth Redistribution is Bad
That's right: bad. Let's call this what it is – punishing people who've done better for themselves than you have. It's a slap in the face of capitalism: you're richer than I am, and that makes me angry. So I'm going to take some of what you've earned away from you...

The truth here is that this is exactly what shouldn't happen. Yes, from a human perspective, the have's should help the have-not's. But it's not the government's job to mandate that. And if you look closely, you'll see that the entire tax system already takes more from the rich than the poor. That brings us to our next entry:

Income Tax is (Already) Applied Unfairly
Let's ignore the fact that income tax was originally unconstitutional, and chalk it up to a necessary evil for our country. The bottom line is that rich people already pay more than you do. That's right: for every dollar they make, they pay more in taxes. It's a sliding-scale-burden that the rich have been shouldering quietly for years. When was the last time you heard a rich person complain that YOU weren't paying enough in taxes? They certainly have that right, since the dollar-for-dollar facts are on their side, and they don't get any additional service out of the government for their additional payments. Yes, they have loopholes and get tax breaks, but not for just making more money. There's no checkbox on form 1040 that says "I'm rich, cut my taxes by 20%." Their tax breaks come from what they do with their money after they've earned it (and been taxed on it). If you did with your money what they do with theirs, you'd get tax breaks too.

In short: I would never try to punish someone who does better in life than me. As an American, I root for them, and hope they root for me.

Other People Count Too
Back to my radical-bashing, here. No matter how strongly you believe in what you believe, there's a good chance that roughly half the people in the country disagree with you. In fact, they think you're a dangerous idiot who just doesn't get it. What's good for you is bad for them. What you look at as a right, they look at as an abrogation of their ideals or faith. What you think they should give away, they think they should protect with a gun.

I could spend a lot of time on this one – oh, goodness, this is an important and timely point. The Onion recently posted a great article, one so good that I wish I had written it myself. Because, even as satire, its words speak more truth than Obama's middle name would if it was interrogated by Jack Bauer.

Report: 60 Million People You'd Never Talk To Voting For Other Guy

The truth here is that even when you're absolutely right, you're probably still half-wrong. We aren't – and will likely never be – a one-size-fits-all world. And getting louder and angrier doesn't lead to anything...but more noise and anger. You've become the problem. And in election 2008, you've hurt more people than you can count. No matter who wins – landslide or not – there's a good chunk of Americans who are going to burn for the next 4 years because you got your way.

The Rest of the World Hates Us
This is true, and the cause is: George Bush?<BUZZ!> Wrong answer!

The truth is that other countries have been hating us since the day we were born: the Brits wanted their tea taxes and a well-behaved colony; the Southerners/Northerners hated us for abolishing slavery/having slaves/abridging state's rights/etc.; the Japanese saw us as a roadblock to victory in their war against China; the Soviets feared our reach and influence so much that they put missiles in Cuba; 20 terrorists learned to fly without asking how to land. And George Bush wasn't precursor to any of that hatred. The fact is that nations hate other nations, for a variety of (good and not-so-good, valid and not-so-valid) reasons. It's a simpleton's view to point to the sitting President as if he is the focus of it all. Because of the political system in America – the one that dismisses a good President after eight years, but lets a bad teacher have tenure for life – most of why other nations hate us happened on some other President's watch. Plans for 9/11 didn't start on GWB's inauguration day – the terrorists didn't know him any better than we did on that day. Figure it out...

We've Lost Our Place in the World's Esteem
This isn't the same as the political brand of "hate" above. This is the view of the ordinary world citizen, reported back to us through the media, and evidenced in our ongoing relations with our work-a-day foreign counterparts.

The truth is that our behavior as a nation is the thing that hurts us most. Our lack of unity, our propensity for vicious and unrestrained in-fighting, and our daily attempts to silence political diversity and abridge the rights of our fellow citizens, speaks more loudly than any national political action. Put simply: we behave badly, and the world sees it. We lie, cheat, and manipulate, we rape each other economically, and ignore the poor and infirm. We rally for special interests, no matter the impact on the mainstream, and weaken ourselves through social movements that strike at the very heart of our citizens' beliefs. In no uncertain terms, we've lost our place in the world, because we've lost our way. We've lost what made us great. We behave like thugs and third-worlders. If they hate us, it's because there's little to love anymore.

Vote for Change, but Don't Expect It

On Tuesday, we'll file into voting booths all around the country – except for those incomprehensibly-sure-of-themselves voters who already knew everything there was to know and voted in advance (read: stopped listening) – and pull levers, push buttons, punch cards, and express our unmitigated opinions in increments of one vote. At the end of the day – counting problems and claims of voter fraud notwithstanding – one man will be crowned king for 2009-2012. Here's what I don't expect:

Apologies.

After the election, the history books will start to re-craft the race. They will revise the facts to fit the outcome, and try to hide the blue-faced breach-birth that was election 2009. But no one will apologize. Not to the candidates, not to the public, not to disaffected/disenfranchised party brethren, and not to the neighbors whose hopes for tomorrow were suddenly and soundly thrashed. In the absence of that – and the commitment to each other it portends – I think change is unlikely.

I mentioned it above: the President, even the government, isn't the problem with America. They are both a reflection of what's wrong with all of us. Obama or McCain can't fix us. They can't make us smarter, wiser, or once again civil. They can't make greed less fruitful, or thoughtful debate more powerful than brutish threats and fear-mongering. In the end, all they can do is legislate and try to lead.

It's up to us to do the rest.

A Dangerous Topic (and a Disclaimer)

Whenever I'm working diligently on a post — as I've been doing recently with my first essay on the state (and quality) of politics and government in America — my internal search engine continues to log acute issues of the day. Issues I want to blog on later, or at least reference in my ongoing analysis of humanity. I try not to become fully engrossed in these topics for fear of straying too far from (and losing continuity with) the core ideas of my current piece. Over the past two weeks, however, I became captivated by a political story of a different — and extremely potent — nature: slavery.

Now, before I dive into this one — a topic that's surely wince-worthy — I want to explain to my readers why I'm tackling it at all. Slavery, (or any of the associated racial issues that flow out of it), isn't a topic many people like to talk about in a public forum. It almost guarantees misunderstanding, anger, charges of racism, counter-charges of racial opportunism. It's a topic that screams "hand off!", and dares you to speak about it in any kind of analytical terms. It's etched into the American experience, yet is a topic we can't often be honest about, except in private, single-race/single-socio-economic groups. People steer clear because they're honestly afraid of how their opinions will be perceived, as if any critical analysis is tantamount to a pro-slavery, pro-racism stance. If you've read my first post, you know that I don't count myself among those people. I'm not afraid to speak about difficult concepts. I'm not afraid to challenge a belief because its parent topic is charged or dangerous. In fact, as many of my readers already know, I think these are exactly the type of issues we need to discuss. It's imperative that we discuss them. I know people will be offended, no matter what my actual intent, but I refuse to be a man held at bay by fear of public outcry. I believe that sharing our ideas is one of the most potent things we can do. That's why I'm blogging about slavery.

Now here comes the disclaimer: I understand.

I know that doesn't sound like a conventional disclaimer, but it's accurate. I grew up at the feet of a progressive mother who was absolutely outspoken about the needs for racial (and sexual) equality. My education in these subjects was thorough and robust, and it left no gray area — nothing to debate. Slavery was an absolute wrong. So was racism. So was any form of discrimination, or disapproval of someone for reasons other than how he or she behaved. I learned that I was no better (or worse) than anyone else — at least not out of the gate. This education served as one of my first moments of clarity — an early step on a road to enlightenment I'm still trying to walk.

In other words, I understand why it's wrong to be a racist, and I understand why anything growing out of racism is wrong. I get it. That's why I've included this "concept-specific" autobiography. As I write these words, I want you to know that I'm absent the beliefs that made slavery possible. So you can write me off as pretentious, or glib, or insensitive, but know that I believe as strongly in equality as I do the need to talk about difficult concepts.

One more thing — an extra disclaimer, if you will. Inasmuch as I feel a need to blog this topic, I accept that the onus is on me to deal respectfully with the issue; to underestimate its power, is to risk injury to those most affected by it. My words may be hard to chew, but there's no malice in them, no veiled hatred, no implied disrespect. They're just my attempt to explore this topic in a meaningful way, without causing harm to anyone. It's a difficult task, even on a good day. That said, I'm throwing my hat into the ring. I hope some of you will join me there.

Thus endeth the disclaimer.

The Apology

So what was the story that started this whole thing? Two weeks ago, CNN posted a news story on slavery. Here's the first line:

"The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for slavery and the era of Jim Crow."

If you're even modestly educated, you can probably catch the drift of the story without reading it yourself. It's exactly what you'd expect: a bunch of (mostly) white politicians, apologizing — on record — for the sins of our fathers (and forefathers). They condemn slavery, and vow to eradicate the tangible vestiges of it that continue to confound the African-American community. All in all, a rousing, passionate, and positive act; a gesture that portends — even promises — peace and racial harmony in our time. It should have made me proud, right? It didn't. It left me stunned, and even a little angry. I stared at the article, and mouthed the only thing that came to mind:

Why are we apologizing for slavery?

It's a powerful question, isn't it? It's dangerous. It smacks of racism, even though it's straightforward, reasonable, and linguistically neutral. It's reasonable. Yet, it's a question people just don't seem to ask. As if they've been robbed of the right to ask. As if asking would become an instant stain on them. For the briefest moment, I forgot myself and fell into that trap: I felt ashamed for asking. I was actually tempted to scold myself, and never speak of my knee-jerk reaction to anyone. Then I remembered myself.

There's no shame in asking a question — even a difficult one. If you read this blog, you know I hold that as a core belief. I even mentioned it again in my prologue. Asking questions is the only way to start a substantive dialogue, and the biggest gateway to understanding. This question — instead of being an outpouring of insensitivity or some hidden inner prejudice — was a prelude to critical analysis. An invitation to explore myself and those around me, and a way to forge a useful public dialogue. By the end of that day, I had shared the article with a dozen people.

What's Wrong with an Apology?

An amazing thing happened as I gathered reactions to the apology: I discovered that I wasn't unique. Everyone I talked to had a similar reaction: irritation and disbelief, verbalized in minor variations of "Why? What for? It's 2008!" and followed by some form of:

"My family never owned slaves."

"All the people who owned slaves are dead."

"All the slaves, and all their children, and all their children's children are dead."

"My family wasn't even in America then."

"The Africans were sold into slavery by their own."

"It was 150 years ago: isn't it about time it stopped being an excuse?"

What's more, I realized that I wasn't on new ground: I'd been seeing those reactions my whole life. Every discussion of apologies for slavery, or reparations, or how the need for affirmative action grew out of slavery-borne injustice, had evoked similar variations of these responses. I'm not going to opine on the validity or invalidity of any of them. When it comes to an issue like this — or any polarizing, radicalizing, hate-inspiring topic — logic, rationality, and even truth can take a beating. It doesn't matter if those statements are a hundred percent true; they can't stand up against the classic block of the "racist" label. The issue has inertia that instantly invalidates them, by which I mean, squashes them without critical response or refutal. In the final analysis, they're just insufficient.

But, it turns out that none of those "responses" were components of my knee-jerk reaction. I realized that my reaction — my objection — was borne of history.

Slavery vs. Racism: The Real Issue

Like most Americans, I've been witness to racial disparity and strife for most of my life. I've listened to heated racial debates, and seen the fallout in my community, country, and world. I've heard from people of all colors, and from all corners of my life, and had friends who were seemingly stymied by their race, instead of merely footnoted by it. I've let the media pour their ideas into and over me, and read history books that are often cited as seminal works on race issues. I've been affected by all of it. And I've been driven to learn even more than what my mother taught me. As a result, I now know a lot about slavery, and about the Jim Crow laws. I understand the damage white America caused to black America, and know that there are still undressed wounds. But none of that comes close to showing slavery and it's now dead offspring laws as tangible problems of the current day.

No. In the end, talk of slavery in America today is mostly a distraction: as long as we're engaged in passionate discussions and apologies about an institution that's now absent from the American landscape, we have no drive to tackle the core issue. The one that allowed slavery to rise. The one that remains 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The one that helped create and sustain Jim Crow laws for nearly a hundred years. The one that's really to blame for the discrimination felt by African-Americans in 2008: racism.

Let me clarify this: Racism is a problem for today. Slavery isn't.

Don't believe me? Look around.

Racism still practically courses through the hearts of many Americans: its effects are in evidence in too many communities, reported on too many news shows, and are still a tangible negative force in the lives of many African-Americans. I'm sad to say that it's almost inescapable. But there are no slaves in America. It's a fact that's pretty easy to check, even if there are some interesting attempts to prove otherwise. (There are anthropologists, politicians, scholars, and activists who talk about political or socio-economic slavery; who cleverly use media statistics, censuses, and the hard feelings of those affected by hatred to prove a de facto state of slavery. And, of course, there are many self-appointed experts -- read: wags; contrarians — who will point to a news article about some unfortunate soul chained in a basement for 12 years, and cite that as proof that my assertion is wrong. Fortunately, de facto anything is usually nothing, and the middle-income monster who imprisons his housekeeper isn't proof of institutional slavery — which is what we're really discussing.)

And unlike the institutions of slavery, which can be dismantled through legislation, racism is borne of the intangible. Legislation can't dismantle prejudice. Legislation can't assuage the primal fears, feelings of superiority, and rampant misunderstandings that fuel racist beliefs. Legislation is not a cure-all. In fact, in the case Jim Crow, legislation actually made matters worse. Despite emancipation, racism remained largely unchecked after the Civil War. It seeped quickly back into the halls of power, and turned the legislative mechanisms that had stopped slavery into new tools for institutional prejudice. It created a framework for segregation and abuse that lasted nearly a hundred years.

But again, how are slavery or Jim Crow actually relevant today? They're important points of history, to be sure — and people still point at their fading echoes as proof that they haven't really become history — but are they true drivers for change? Can we defeat racism when we only see it in the rearview mirror, and if we only color it as a legacy of slavery, instead of a precursor? Let's go back to what started this: The apology, and why I objected to it.

Slavery's End: Count the Heroes, Count the Dead

A long time ago, white Americans embraced slavery as a good and proper thing. (For the record, they were part of a much larger club. Nations the world over embraced it just as eagerly, and just as brutally. Truly, it was never just an American problem...) It was good business. It was commerce. It was the natural order. It was a mandate from God. And it had staying power. Nobody seemed to realize that it was also an abomination.

Then came men like Abraham Lincoln.

Now, I'm not going to point to Lincoln as if he was the first white person to step out of line on the issue of slavery. In fact, according to some historians, Lincoln was late to the party, and inconsistent in his condemnations. Other historians have even suggested that his objections weren't organic, but a savvy political reflection of some of the growing Northern social consciousness. In any case, Lincoln is still a good example; his fame casts him as an archetype for all the whites who stood against the institution of slavery. Those people are at the core of my objection.

Slavery didn't end by accident. Slavery wasn't dissolved by apathy. It didn't just wither away and die of old age, or fade into oblivion like some absurd fad. Slavery went down hard, under the weight of war and blood and sacrifice. Good white men surrendered themselves to dust so that black America could be free. And I'm not just talking about the Civil War. I'm talking about the ongoing struggle of race in America: the one where white Americans for more than a hundred years continued to tear down the walls of institutional prejudice; the one where white presidents and legislators fought (sometimes even against their own parties and constituencies) to dismantle voting prohibitions, segregated schools, and discriminatory hiring practices; the one where white teenagers faced off against hate groups in the deep south because they believed in equality; the one where white politicians and public officials tore down Jim Crow laws, and continue to stand vigilant against the ongoing ripples of racism I alluded to above.

I'm talking about heroes in the epic struggle of race in America. The people who are all but forgotten every time someone musters a new apology for slavery, or suggests that white America hasn't really made amends.

You see, it's not that I object to the apology — it turns out I don't. Apologies are good. Apologies are important. Apologies reveal our commitment to repent and repair. I object to the marginalization of our historic struggle to make things right. I object to the notion that the countless sacrifices of our fathers and forefathers aren't even a down payment on this debt. I object to the fact that no attention is paid to the heroes and the dead.

Conclusion

In closing, I can't help but wonder if I've achieved anything here. I've added my 2,500 words to the public record, and possibly spawned some new discourse, but I still can't answer the fundamental questions. I don't know why 150 years of renunciation, pain, and penance doesn't count for an apology. Or how we can disregard the told (and untold) sacrifices that finally stripped slavery out of the American superstructure. I don't know why we're so focused on that long dead institution, that we let it obscure the real issues of the day, and propagate the idea that its parent prejudice was actually its child and heir. And I don't know how any of that leads to a racism-free tomorrow.

In my research, I found many quotes from prominent African-Americans who believe that this apology, however symbolic, has healing power; that this late tenth-party gesture is a potent salve for their entire race. I honestly hope they're right, even as I wonder why they believe it, and why they've been waiting for it — and why they don't seem to remember the heroes and the dead.

If they are right, then maybe this apology will be the last apology. Maybe with it said and done, we'll finally be able to focus on racism in the 21st century. After all, isn't that the real burden for today?