When considering the USA,
It has really come quite a long way.
  Things that were often done
  In Eighteen-twenty-one
Are now totally frowned on today.

Morals back then weren't all well-engraved,
And so some people acted depraved.
  They would go for a trip
  On a large wooden ship
To find people and make them enslaved.

This practice should have been demolished,
When Lincoln declared it abolished.
  But as we all know,
  The laws called "Jim Crow"
Kept the mandate from being acknowledged.

So thankfully, now we agree
That humans have a right to be free,
  And that it is quite base
  To think African race
Doesn't merit full equality.

But some people are still not content,
And are calling on our president
  To apologize fast
  For the sins of the past
So tension doesn't build and ferment.

Yet what this proposition ignores,
Is that doing so opens old sores.
  And it's not always great
  To revisit the hate
That was lessened in long-ago wars.

And to this fact we should be aware:
People living now weren't the ones there.
  It is foolish to bother
  With sins of the father
Because such things are very unfair.

We can't say that there's guilt in a son
Due to what his ancestors have done.
  If so, none of us win
  And original sin
Means that much guilt lies with everyone.

The response is that as a great nation,
America holds obligation
  To redress the past wrongs,
  And the burden belongs
To our modern-day administration.

But although slavery was quite vile,
It was not our first act in poor style.
  Centuries long ago
  We made Indians go
From the land they had used for a while.

If we tell Africa we are sorry,
Then we soon will be on a safari
  To go apologize
  To all of the guys
From Grenada to Alpha Centauri.

Because if you look back over time,
All ancestors were not quite sublime.
  Unjust wars, stolen lands,
  Lots of blood on their hands
Few lineages are free from crime.

So apology might not be best,
Since we'd owe it to all of the rest.
  In the past, it is true
  Evil deeds we did do,
But today we should not be obsessed.

Our old actions weren't great, as we've said,
But it's time that the issue was dead.
  Though our past was unpleasant,
  Let us look to the present,
And help their economy instead.