Bernie Sanders: 'Yes' I'd apologize for slavery and I'd make reparations by investing in low-income communities

 

Photo: AP

Bernie Sanders committed tonight to formally apologizing for slavery on behalf of the United States if he becomes president

"There's nothing that anybody can do to undo the deaths and misery" - Bernie

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Bernie Sanders committed tonight to formally apologizing for slavery on behalf of the United States if he becomes president. 

Sanders told heavily black audience that Tindley Temple United Methodist Church, 'There's nothing that anybody can do to undo the deaths and misery, how many people we don't even know who died on the way over here in the ships.'

But the United States has to make an attempt to 'wipe the slate clean' by acknowledging the truth, he said after an audience member asked him point blank if he'd offer a presidential-level apology and he said, 'Yes.'

And while the U.S. Senator does not support reparations in the form of a check for the inhumane treatment of Africans before the end of the Civil War, he does believe the government should invest in low-income communities, many of which are black, and he reiterated that point tonight.

 Photo: AP

Sanders told heavily black audience that Tindley Temple United Methodist Church, 'There's nothing that anybody can do to undo the deaths and misery, how many people we don't even know who died on the way over here in the ships'

Photo: AP

But the United States has to make an attempt to 'wipe the slate clean' by acknowledging the truth, he said after an audience member asked him point blank for a presidential-level apology

'I think my view is pretty close to President Obama's,' he told another attendee, Catherine Hicks, of the Philadelphia Sunday SUN newspaper, a local African-American publication. 'And that is we understand the legacy of slavery.

'We understand that.'

He directed their attention to remarks he'd already made that evening about the problems plaguing black areas and said, 'As everybody in this room knows, what were seeing in many African-American communities, outrageously high levels of unemployment, inadequate education, inadequate healthcare.

'I think what we have got to do as a nation is invest in those communities who need that...investment the most.'

Communities with 'long-term structural' issues should 'become the communities that receive the highest priority for federal' assistance, he argued.

'Let us make sure that in every way, federal funding goes to those communities who need it the most,' Sanders, said, adding that 'in most cases, though' those areas are inhabited by blacks.

Sanders came under scrutiny earlier this year from some blacks on the left after he said at an event that traditional reparations are a dead-end issue with Congress.

Photo: TNS

Sanders participated in a question and answer session at the Philadelphia church before a rally in the City of Brotherly Love. He's seen here talking to the crowd aferward with Rev. Robert L. Johnson

Photo: AP

Asked tonight about slavery, and whether he would apologize for it, Sanders said, 'You want the short answer? Yes.' The answer earned loud cheers and clapping from his mixed-race audience

He said at the time, 'I think it would be very divisive. I think the real issue is, when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, the incarceration rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do.' 

Hillary Clinton has a similar position on the issue to Sanders. She also believes that amends should be made in the form of investment in blighted communities.

Reparations have traditionally been seen as individual payments from the government but the modern interpretation leaves room for the types of investments Sanders and Clinton have endorsed.

Now, reparations can mean 'reinvestment in communities most affected' and a 'payback for harm that is done,' one advocate for repayment, Neighborhoods Organizing for Change's Mike Griffin, told DailyMail.com in February.

'I mean, I will take a check,' he explained. 'This is not an either or, but an and.'

Sanders took a 'step in the right direction,' Griffin said at the Minneapolis event, where the topic came up repeatedly, by saying he was for directing federal funds to communities in need.

'Hopefully by the end of the election we're going to get him to say specifically he wants to invest in communities that have been harmed historically that are still being harmed systematically, and that all stemmed from slavery,' Griffin said.

Sanders did not appear any closer tonight to making that declaration than he was two months ago. But he did not harp on on the necessity of sending funds to poor white and Latino communities, as well, as he has when the topic has come up in the past.

Tonight Sanders reflected on the tragedy of slavery and said, 'Truth is is not always an easy thing. 'And a lot of things that we have done in this country that are shameful, we've gotta recognize that'

Asked tonight about slavery and whether he would apologize for it, Sanders said, 'You want the short answer? Yes.'

Bill Clinton apologized in Africa in 1998 for the slave trade but the Office of the President and the federal government have never officially said they're sorry.

Federal lawmakers made an attempt to do so in Barack Obama's first term but couldn't come to an agreement on what the resolution should say. 

Some worried that an apology would open the door to the kind of reparations that even Sanders, Clinton, Obama and other Democrats have said they do not support.

Tonight Sanders reflected on the tragedy of slavery and said, 'Truth is is not always an easy thing.

'And a lot of things that we have done in this country that are shameful, we've gotta recognize that,' he said.

Coming back to the question, whether he'd apologize for slavery as the chief executive of the country, he said, 'The answer is yes.' 

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