We’re Sorry, But Not THAT Sorry

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Suddenly, Sen. Sam Brownback wants to apologize to African Americans and Native Americans for generations of suffering. Such attempts have been made by Congress before, but the twist here is that Brownback, who is an extreme right-wing politician, is running for president in 2008.

The resolution, authored by Brownback and Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen, “acknowledges that the U.S. government ‘violated many of the treaties ratified by Congress and other diplomatic agreements with Indian tribes’ while taking actions that caused ‘immense harm’ to native peoples, including forced removal, relocation and extermination.”

Brownback has a 20% rating (lower than Harry Reid’s!) from the ACLU, which means that he has gone out of his way to deny civil liberties to citizens, many of whom, of course, are minorities. He voted to end special funding to minority-owned businesses and against setting aside highway funds for minorities.

Brownback voted against maintaining the right of habeus corpus in death penalty appeals, has consistently voted against public education, and–despite his talk about Native Americans’ stewardship of the land–has consistently voted against conserving the environment (he has a 0% rating from the League of Conservation Voters).

And while it’s nice that hypocrites in Congress are falling all over themselves to apologize to African Americans and Native Americans, when is Congress going to consider apologizing to women? We were burned as witches, denied birth control, denied the vote, forbidden to take most jobs, forbidden to enroll in many schools (until the 1970s), had genital mutilation performed on us (until the late 1970s), denied credit, given no protection against spousal abuse, denied the right to divorce, placed in psychiatric hospitals for asking questions or speaking our minds, sexually abused and assaulted in the workplace, denied the right to participate in most sports…the list goes on and on.

The truth, of course, is that “apologies” like Brownback’s are shallow and offensive, but at least Congress considers African Americans and Native Americans politically important enough to pander to.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate