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California Apologizes to Chinese Americans

tlmorg02

tlmorg02

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California Apologizes to Chinese Americans - Yahoo! News

What's in an apology? Some expressions of remorse are commonplace - we hear them on the playground when kids smack each other on the head, or they land in your inbox after a friend forgets your birthday. It's the grand-scale apologies, it seems, that are harder to come by.


On July 17, the California legislature quietly approved a landmark bill to apologize to the state's Chinese-American community for racist laws enacted as far back as the mid–19th century Gold Rush, which attracted about 25,000 Chinese from 1849 to 1852. The laws, some of which were not repealed until the 1940s, barred Chinese from owning land or property, marrying whites, working in the public sector and testifying against whites in court. The new bill also recognizes the contributions Chinese immigrants have made to the state, particularly their work on the Transcontinental Railroad. (Check out a story about the Asian-American experience in late[EN]20th century California.)


The apology is the latest in a wave of official acts of remorse around the globe. In 2006, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a similar apology, expressing regret to Chinese Canadians for unequal taxes imposed on them in the late 19th century. Last February, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologized to his country's Aborigines for racist laws of the past, including the forced separation of children from their parents. Five months later, the U.S. Congress formally apologized to black Americans for slavery and the later Jim Crow laws, which were not repealed until the 1960s. And most notably, in 1988 the U.S. government decided to pay $20,000 to each of the surviving 120,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned in camps during World War II. Says Donald Tamaki, a San Francisco–based attorney who helped overturn wrongful WWII-era convictions of Japanese Americans: "Part of what a humane society does is recognize past injustices and address them."
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I do not get this nonsense! What is with all of the stupid apologies for past acts? Does it make people feel sooo enlightened and sophisticated and modern to apologize for how the world operated during the course of history? All of this is meaningless as those responsible for the way things were are not the one's apologizing, nor are the victims around to accept. It is empty and a waste of time, nor does it make the facts change. One is to learn from history and improve upon the condition of man from the lessons learned. Not feel guilty and apologize for how everything was. Am I alone in this thinking?
 
I still want apologies for Muslim incursions into Syria, Judea and the Byzantine Empire, the persecution of the Knights Templar, the War of Northern Aggression, Forced Desegregation and the Income Tax.
 
does this mean the chinese can leave Chinatown whenever they choose?
 
Oftencold said:
I still want apologies for Muslim incursions into Syria, Judea and the Byzantine Empire, the persecution of the Knights Templar, the War of Northern Aggression, Forced Desegregation and the Income Tax.
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I want the English to apologize for occupying Ireland.

Wait, on second thought, I don't, because if that hadn't happened, I'd either be in Ireland now, or not even born...

California is in the midst of a year long refusal to cut spending to meet revenues. Where did they find the time to apologize? And since those legislators didn't actually write any racism anti-chinese laws, what does the apology mean, besides empty pandering?

Will the Chinese in California be stupid enough to feel better now that people who had nothing to do with the creation and perpetuation of laws almost none of them experienced made an empty apology? Or will that apology form the basis of demands for reparations extorted from a cash strapped state?
 
I would like to apologize for bubonic plague, the Ice Age, and New Kids on the Block.
 
Erod said:
I would like to apologize for bubonic plague, the Ice Age, and New Kids on the Block.
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I am apologizing for being a white guy! How insensitive and heinous of my parents to give birth to another of these tyrants and oppressors!!!!:mrgreen:
 
Erod said:
I would like to apologize for bubonic plague, the Ice Age, and New Kids on the Block.
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before you take culpability for NKOTB
you should know doing so opens you up to prosecution and a possible death sentence for subjecting the world to that garbage
 
DeeJayH said:
before you take culpability for NKOTB
you should know doing so opens you up to prosecution and a possible death sentence for subjecting the world to that garbage
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I understand. I'm throwing myself on the mercy of the court. If only I were Chinese.......
 
tlmorg02 said:
I am apologizing for being a white guy! How insensitive and heinous of my parents to give birth to another of these tyrants and oppressors!!!!:mrgreen:
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I, for one, cannot accept this apology unless you can promise no more white guys will be born. :2razz:
 
Free egg rolls tomorrow. :mrgreen:
 
I want Canadians to apologize for Celine Dion and I want Californians to apologize for Cher.
 
I am a native Californian and I was once proud to tell people that, but those days are long past. California has become waste land filled with special interest groups, and home to a wildly liberal legislature that makes no sense what ever on a regular basis, this being a prime example. Like the idiotic apology for slavery it means absolutely not one damn thing. There is no one alive that ghad anything to do with anything that took place in the 1800s. Truth is if I remember my history correctly there were a few issues that had to addressed that were spacific to the Chinese who flooded into the state back then. One in particular was Opium dens that were all over and I believe can still be seen in a few historical locations along HWY 49 in Gold Country.
I wish people would Stop this stupidity. There are absolute fools who think we owe Japan an apology for Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki ends the war. I fear they will eventually do it because they don't know the facts and history. They don't know that it saved as many as a million lives. But they call stupid people stupid for a reason.
 
Let's get into the bones of this. Why do people, who have no direct responsibility, feel compelled to apologize for such things? What does it do for them personally? We all know that it does nothing for the actual victims, who are long dead and gone, so why the preoccupation with apologies for the sake of apologies?
 
A group of American student are going to Japan to apologize for us dropping two atomic bombs to end forever a "WORLD WAR"!!! I only hope on their return trip they sail in to Pearl Harbor for a brief stay.
 
Oftencold said:
I still want apologies for Muslim incursions into Syria, Judea and the Byzantine Empire, the persecution of the Knights Templar, the War of Northern Aggression, Forced Desegregation and the Income Tax.
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Actually California should apologize to all Americans, and have their electoral votes cut in half.
 
Councilman said:
I wish people would Stop this stupidity. There are absolute fools who think we owe Japan an apology for Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki ends the war. I fear they will eventually do it because they don't know the facts and history. They don't know that it saved as many as a million lives. But they call stupid people stupid for a reason.
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Japanese students moved by reconciliation trip | The News Tribune - Local | Seattle-Tacoma News, Weather, Sports, Jobs, Homes and Cars | South Puget Sound's Destination
 
I would like to apologize for Cain's murder of Abel to everyone that may or may not be a decedent of Abel.

It was an atrocious act and we will strive to do better in the future.
 
American said:
Actually California should apologize to all Americans, and have their electoral votes cut in half.
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Oh does that mean we can cut our revenue contributes towards the federal government in half too?
 
Gibberish said:
Oh does that mean we can cut our revenue contributes towards the federal government in half too?
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Of course not, pay up bitches. :rofl
 
Oh does that mean we can cut our revenue contributes towards the federal government in half too?
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:rofl What revenue?
 
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