Church acknowledges sin

The Grauniad reports on a debate in the Church of England on slavery. The Church is acknowledging its role in perpetuating plantation slavery and has decided to apologise to the descendants of the slaves. It is, however, not going to pay reparations for slavery.

The issue of reparations is one that is not easy to deal with. On the one hand, slavery and its aftermath left black people in the Americas and Europe at an economic, social, and cultural disadvantage and that should be redressed. On the other, who is responsible for redressing it? Most whites in Britain, France, the US, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and Estonia (all of which countries had some involvement in slavery and the slave trade) are not the descendants of slaveowners and cannot see that they benefitted from slavery (even though in some cases those benefits are obvious). Blacks were involved as slave catchers, slave traders, and slaveowners. Who should compensate whom? This is not an easy question to answer, and its existence drives a wedge between well-meaning blacks and whites (not always so well-meaning, but certainly sincere).