Topic
for
5/30/97:		 How would you feel, and what would you do, if you were to discover that your father had been one of the Tuskegee experiment victims? Would the recent Presidential apology be enough?



Name: april crump
Email: april_crump@nt.com
Response: Normally, I am more out spoken than this but I can only think of one word to discribe this apology. TACKY!. No one can make up for the past. What is done is done. We as a people have got to stop looking for apologies to what has already been done. We know that it has and so does our goverment. How can the President apologize for a group of people that are not apologetic? Where are the people that did the experiment? Are they going to give the victim's families money for their losses and premature funeral costs? For the fact that many of these men infected their family members. Are they going to apologize for emotional scars on their children and wives that had to go out and make money the best way they knew how? If not, then why apologize. It's like telling someone who's mother died you know how they feel. That would be inane. It is just a shame and disgrace the type of society that we live in. In fact, I believe that studies like this are continued everyday in the '90's. There is just to much fascination in what makes us black and white. Some people believe we derived from monkeys some people like me believe that we come from Adam and Eve. There is no difference, all of this science is a demeaning way to find out who is more superior. It is merely a way to make one race feel more demeaned and downtroddened. For people to be this mean and cruel, it can only be satan. People need to look at what really makes people do the things they do and satan is what it all boils down to in my opinion.


Name: Kushla Beacon
Email: erb.cggkb@xtra.co.nz
Response: His apology may be enough for him but not to others. I think back to the second world war and remember how so many Americans and the government citicised Hitler for his experiments and the holocaust in which many jews died and still they manage to conduct their own drastic experiment. Why has it taken Clinton such a long time to actually take this action? Is this the kind of president America wants?????


Name: Francine
Email: francinej@msn.com
Response: President Clinton's apology is years too late! I feel insulted that he would feel he is worthy of making such an apology. So what! Yes, he is the leader of this country, but I questions the sincerity and the true reason for this apology. Many people in this nation, including President Clinton during his first term in office, were aware of the horrible things these men endured and the crimes that were committed against the men at Tuskegee and their families, why apologize now?


Name: rose jenkins
Email: rjenk63062@aol.com
Response: i don't accept his apology because i don't turst him or anything he say...........by the way whatever happen to the 40 acres and a mule to our greatgrand parents?........the government is full@#@##@@@###..... and why was he smiling at Ron Brown furnela....i think he was smiling so Mr. Brown woudn't release information about him and his past..... it seems everyone that are close to this person comes up dead....... read between the lines....


Name: Robbie Garrison
Email: Bookstreet @aol.com
Response: NO! Most definitely not enough, but considering the fact it took all these years for a President to have guts enough to offer a public apology, it may be all there will ever be. I believe America as we know it was born by the sword and will die by the sword. The Majority of the white race in America would turn against anyone not white if they felt threatened enough. IE;Native Americans, Africans,Chinese, Japanese,Arabs,Cubans...This is a racist country and will be ever thus.


Name: Solomon Landers
Email: Numberup@worldnet.att.net
Response: No way! An apology (belated, at that) definitely would not be enough to compensate for the betrayal of the trust all Americans should be able to have in our Government. It is just purely unconscionable to treat ANY citizen this way. I would feel shock, betrayal, outrage, and pity for people whose racism allows them to stoop so low. Nothing can be done to help the deceased victims, and monetary awards are scant comfort for the surviving family members. I would commit myself to seeing that such practices do not occur again by supporting those organizations which keep a watchful eye on Government action. I would become much more informed on what the Government is doing in its testing and research programs. As John Curran said in 1790, and quoted in the 1960's by president Kennedy, "Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."


Name: BROWND
Email: OWENS CORNING
Response: NO APOLOGY OR MONETARY AMOUNT CAN RESTORE THE DAMAGE DONE TO THE FAMILIES OR THE COMMUNITY. PRES. CLINTON'S JOB WAS TO MAKE THE COUNTRY AWARE HOW ALL LIFE IS PRECIOUS AND ASK THE INDIVIDUALS LIVING AND THEIR FAMILIES FOR FORGIVENESS. THE GOVT FAIL TO PROTECT THE INDIVIDUAL FREEDON.


Name: George
Email: rasta@voicenet.com
Response: They haven't truly apologized for the lynchings my great ancestors suffered during slavery and far after that. When will they fess up and admit to the assasination of Martin Luther King jr. Are they going to apologize for pumping crack into black neighborhoods I think not . The true thoughts of most white people is that why should they apologize for the mistakes of their ancestors anyway .So in response to the question I wouldn't feel anything to have discovered that my father was a victim of the instuite. MY father's father father's have all been victims of this great country in which we live in . So in actuality these apologies are just a slap in the face and only make me more angry.


Name: Yeah Right
Email: s015lab@desire.wright.edu
Response: Without money, there is no verbal apology on earth that would suffice. I would have to be compensated, at LEAST for $500,000, in addition to a verbal presidential apology, before I felt vindicated. Even then, what does it matter? The government is currently persecuting the Black community by filtering drugs into our neighborhoods, and keeping us doped up, while we have no jobs, no education, no hope. Just like a previous responder wrote on another issue: fifty years from now is the president going to have to apologize to the Black community for allowing the CIA to have drugs sold in the Black community to fund guns for the Contras? And the beat goes on and on.......


Name: Yeah Right
Email: s015lab@desire.wright.edu
Response: Without monetary compensation, there are no words that could make up for the grave injustice bestowed upon the 400-plus men of the Tuskegee Experiment. I donot know what the survivors received, but I would not have been satisfied with less than $500,000. Then again, what difference does an apology from the president of the United States make, when a new grave injustice is being inflicted upon the Black community with the CIA backed neutralization of the Black Community with the filtering of drugs into our communities? Just like a responder to the question on this subject said in previous weeks: in fifty years, is the U.S. president going to have to apologize to the Black community for the government doping our communities up, and standing by and watching while our kids killed each other over the scraps of money thrown in the community behind the drugs, when the real money-makers in the drug industry are the doctors, lawyers, and no-doubt legislative policy-makers who make the deals with the suppliers from South America to fly and ship the drugs in and then look the other way at the entrance ports? Please! Let us not get too excited over this apology, which was the right thing, and politically expedient thing for Clinton to do. We are still catchin' hell here and now in 1997, while Clinton's little apology allowed us to forget today's hell for an afternoon and remember back to the particular hell we were faced with of yesteryear.


Name: Nnamdi Nzingha
Email:
Response: I would feel victimized and betrayed by my country. In addition, I would try to receive additional punitive damages. I recently read the book on the issue and it was startling


Name: Tyree Amala
Email: TyreeA@Hotmail.com
Response: No, no and no! There is no way the pittance the survivors and this so called apology can ever make up for the disgusting experiment our Brothers and Sister (wives, daughters, etc) were subjected to!


Name: geraldina dixon
Email: bus4gld@atlas.edu.vcu.
Response: i really don't know if the question is still pending for continued response, but i think parents should be held accountable for their child or children crime aganist society. the point of being a parent is nurture and direct the youth toward an acceptable and productive life. a break down or the lack of these duties can cause continue problems and crime against the family and society in later generations. it is time that both parents whether in the home or not to be accountable for the product in which they had plenty of time to conceive, but no time to raise. i also want to know whether or not you asked the public about racial accountabilty across the broad. should other races be accountable for not speaking out in matters like o.j. or local betrayal of the clash against black and whites while isolating other races and ethnicities from the current issues whether in the media or in the local community in which they live? i also would like to know if possible opinions on how to hold alternative races, genders, and ethnicities to social injustices against another.


Name: K. Leonard
Email: k8wra@juno.com
Response: I would feel both rage and anger, if my father had been on of the victims of the Tuskegee experiment. I would also engage a very capable lawyer to take the government and all living perpertrators of this heinous crime before bar of justice. I would have my day in court, and seek justice.


Name: RYAN CALLOWAY
Email: CALLOWR@GPB.ORG
Response: I am glad that an apology was made, but I also feel that it was far too late. What we as a people must understand is that we have continuously had bad things done to us. I also believe we will continue to have bad things happen until we wake up. How can we have liquor stores on every street corner in the hood and can't get the simplest of loans, whether it be a loan for a house or to start a buisness. It is highly unlikely that the government will ever fess up to many of the other wrong doings. I would gladly receive the apology, but the damage has already been done and could never be forgotten. My only response to the government would be that it cease to continue its numerous other experiments and injustices to all members of the non-white communities.


Name: JB
Email: jbutts@ehso.emory.edu
Response: We deal too much in the symbolic. What I would like to see is any surviving doctors or nurses come under criminal and civil charges. President Clinton was not responsible, so his apology, while a nice symbolic gesture, is not useful. When the federal government is ready to put its money where its mouth is, I'll feel better. When they are ready to pursue criminal charges, I'll think of it as a day that we can start forgiveness. Right now, it's just talk. Talk without action is useless.


Name: B. Ford
Email: b_ford@holton-arms.edu
Response: No, "Oops, sorry" would not hardly be enough. It might have been a start if it had come from someone actually involved in the experiment, but it doesn't really mean anything (to me) coming from President Clinton. For too long white folks get to do and say anything to us without having to pay SERIOUS restitution.


Name: BROWND
Email: OWENS CORNING
Response: NO APOLOGY OR MONETARY AMOUNT CAN RESTORE THE DAMAGE DONE TO THE FAMILIES OR THE COMMUNITY. PRES.CLINTON'S JOB WAS TO MAKE THE COUNTRY AWARE HOW ALL LIFE IS PRECIOUS AND ASK THE INDIVIDUALS LIVING AND THEIR FAMILIES FOR FORGIVENESS. THE GOVT FAIL TO PROTECT THE INDIVIDUAL FREEDON.


Name: George
Email: rasta@voicenet.com
Response: They havent truly apologized for the lynchings my great ancestors suffered during slavery and far after that . When will they fes up and admit to the assasination of Martin Luther King jr. Are they going to apologize for pumping crack into black neighborhoods I think not . The true thoughts of most white people is that why should they apologize for the mistakes of their ancestors anyway .So in response to the question I wouldn't feel anything to have discovered that my father was a victim of the instuite. MY father's father father's have all been victims of this great country in which we live in . So in actuality these apologies are just a slap in the face and only make me more angry.


Name: Yeah Right
Email: s015lab@desire.wright.edu
Response: Without monetary compensation, there are no words that could make up for the grave injustice bestowed upon the 400-plus men of the Tuskegee Experiment. I donot know what the survivors received, but I would not have been satisfied with less than $500,000. Then again, what difference does an apology from the president of the United States make, when a new grave injustice is being inflicted upon the Black community with the CIA backed neutralization of the Black Community with the filtering of drugs into our communities? Just like a responder to the question on this subject said in previous weeks: in fifty years, is the U.S. president going to have to apologize to the Black community for the government doping our communities up, and standing by and watching while our kids killed each other over the scraps of money thrown in the community behind the drugs, when the real money-makers in the drug industry are the doctors, lawyers, and no-doubt legislative policy-makers who make the deals with the suppliers from South America to fly and ship the drugs in and then look the other way at the entrance ports? Please! Let us not get too excited over this apology, which was the right thing, and politically expedient thing for Clinton to do. We are still catchin' hell here and now in 1997, while Clinton's little apology allowed us to forget today's hell for an afternoon and remember back to the particular hell we were faced with of yesteryear.


Name: Robbie Garrison
Email: Bookstreet @aol.com
Response: NO! Most definitely not enough, but considering the fact it all these years for a President to have guts enough to offer a public apology, it may be all there will ever be. I believe America as we know it was born by the sword and will die by the sword. The Majority of the white race in America would turn against anyone not white if they felt threatened enough. IE;Native Americans, Africans,Chinese, Japanese,Arabs,Cubans...This is a racist country and will be ever thus.


Name: Solomon Landers
Email: Numberup@worldnet.att.net
Response: No way! An apology (belated, at that) definitely would not be enough to compensate for the betrayal of the trust all Americans should be able to have in our Government. It is just purely unconscionable to treat ANY citizen this way. I would feel shock, betrayal, outrage, and pity for people whose racism allows them to stoop so low. Nothing can be done to help the deceased victims, and monetary awards are scant comfort for the surviving family members. I would commit myself to seeing that such practices do not occur again by supporting those organizations which keep a watchful eye on Government action. I would become much more informed on what the Government is doing in its testing and research programs. As John Curran said in 1790, and quoted in the 1960's by president Kennedy, "Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."