The Ghosts of Whose Past?

This chapter discusses three political apologies in the United States political system for the enslavement of African Americans. Public political apologies are meant to describe the past atrocity in a way that expresses remorse. Many tend also to attempt to either create exculpatory narratives or cast the account within the framework of a redemptive narrative. Through a comparison of the three apologies—by President George W. Bush in 2003, by the House of Representatives in 2008, and by the US Senate in 2009—this chapter discerns how each of the executive and legislative branches of the American government represents the past within a discernible form and with varying success. By explicating what kind of metaphors and discursive strategies each apology employs, this chapter attempts to assess what each apologist is striving to do in remembering that past event, and what each is attempting to protect. It shows what is at stake in political apologies that attempt to resurrect and repent of a past that the apologists don’t necessarily wish to remember.