Recently, the Senate passed the "Native American Apology Amendment" led by Republican Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback.  The Amendment was attached to the reauthorization of the "Indian Health Care Improvement Act" and it offered an official apology from the Federal Government to Native Americans. The measure measure passed successfully according to a press release issued by Brownback's office on Tuesday.

In an earlier press release, Brownback said:

Our nation's relationship with the Native peoples of this land is an issue that is very important to the health of the United States. For too much of our history, Federal-Tribal relations have been marked by broken treaties, mistreatment, and dishonorable dealings. We can acknowledge our past failures, express sincere regrets, and establish a brighter future for all Americans.

Given the historical record of holocaust, disenfranchisement, marginalization, and the concentration camp-like apartheid of Native Americans, the apology seems long overdue, but always nonetheless, better late than never.  Still, apologies are seen by many as just words and words are not often synonymous with actions. Sam Hananel's story in the Associated Press speaks to this sentiment:

But it's one thing to just apologize and another thing to do something while you're apologizing," said Garcia, who is governor of the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo in northern New Mexico. "You have to put words into action and the action is to improve the problems created by those ill-conceived policies."

Brownback's legislation is a major step toward reparations in the Native American community.

The resolution says the federal government forced Indians off tribal lands, stole tribal assets and is responsible for "official depredations, ill-conceived policies and the breaking of covenants" with tribes.

While apologies from the Federal Government are few and far between, official apologies have been made to groups in the past.  In 1988, an apology was issued for the Japanese Internment Camps of World War II and in 1993, the federal government apologized to native Hawaiians for the wrongful and "unlawful overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom." In 2005, the Senate apologized for the lynchings of African-Americans

Some point out however, that absent among these official apologies is an apology to African-Americans for slavery and segregation. Notwithstanding historical broken promises of "40 acres and a mule", the "get over it" undertone that permeates much of the discourse on "racial beyondism" is ever present in the silent but implicit refusal of the Federal Government to issue a formal and official apology to African-Americans. Some would argue that apologizing to Native Americans for a haunting legacy of wrongful doings that date back to the arrival of Columbus (before the U.S. enslavement of African-Americans) means that time is never an excuse nor a validation for withholding apologies and reparation efforts.

Others would argue that the 15th Amendment, The Civil Rights Acts of 1871, 1875, 1957, 1960, and 1964 along with Affirmative Action were all apologies in disguise. A considerable number of Americans believe that it is unfair for them and their government officials to be expected to apologize for historic wrongs they feel they had no part in committing. Opponents of this simply point to the benefits and privileges afforded to generations that are a direct result of these historic wrongs.

The arguments surrounding this issue often prove to be endless. But many point to the apologies of the Federal Government as driving a separatist wedge between historically disadvantaged groups and undermining their respective struggles. Where there is an apology for one group, there is not an apology for another. But one cannot negate the racial and ethnic overlap with regard to experiences of struggle. One would need only to look at African-American Seminoles, Maroons, and even the Cherokee Freedmen to argue that an apology for one group can often mean an apology for another.  Nevertheless, the powers of relativity, uniqueness, and specificity applies again and again.

...the Australian government issued a formal apology to Aborigines for decades of racist policies and abuse against that country's original inhabitants.

With what seems to be a new paradigm of race relations emerging, what does it mean for nations who continue to leave stones of inequality unturned in their history? For many African-Americans, an apology from the federal government shouldn't come from the disguise of legislation, the mere passage of policy, or the waning prejudice and changing paradigm of the decades. Like all sincere apologies, it should come from a place of empathy, remorse, and ownership. And while (according to some) apologies mean very little without supported actions, sometimes actions are obscured without supported words.

No one knows whether anymore apologies are in the political forecast of the Federal Government to historically disadvantaged groups, but one thing is for sure, electing an African-American or a woman as president will neither close the lid on this discourse nor rid America of its responsibility to reconcile with those living in its present effected by the wrongs of its past.