Something is really bugging me.

I don’t know about this whole slavery apology thing. It just doesn’t seem to make sense to me.

Why now, some 132 years later, has a U.S. president decided to give an apology for the travesty of slavery?

Don’t misunderstand me. I feel it’s a good thing; however, I question the President’s reasoning behind it.

What, if anything is he trying to prove? What is the political reason behind it? Why all of sudden is Big Bill giving the country a history lesson?

Sure, the apology for the Tuskegee experiment brought a sense of closure to an extremely indecent time in American history. But an apology for slavery? What does this mean to America?

Ask any modern white American citizen what they think about slavery and you may hear that they felt it was a terrible thing. You might hear them say they wish they could change history. You might even hear they have no feeling about slavery since they have never owned a slave and never will own a slave.

The truth is that slavery has not ended. Wait, let me repeat that — slavery have not ended. (Here is where I go into my angry black-male mode) think about it. Don’t believe me? Think really, really hard.

Think about this — the education of African Americans is full of misleading information about this country’s history. The prejudice of America is perhaps worse now than ever before.

Oh yeah, sure, I have more opportunities now than my mother did, but I have more obstacles than she did.

In her day, she was fighting to move out of the shadow she was put in. I’m not in a shadow. Now, I’m in a grave. The grave dug by those who choose to bring me down.

I’m in college, that is true, but what does it take for me to graduate? I have to be 10 times better than the white person sitting next to me. I have to be more motivated than the white person in front of me. And I have to watch out for the white person behind me.

I have to get up two hours earlier, go to sleep one hour later, and study three hours longer than everyone else. Why? Because whenever I go to an interview, a power lunch or a business meeting I already have one strike against me — my skin color.

Never mind that I am educated, intelligent and could tell any one of you how to do your job better, faster and more efficient. The moment I walk in the door, you see my color first and foremost and you immediately assume what you assume.

There are those who assume everytime I write something it will be militant, violent or in some way Farrakhanish. This is why I say slavery still exist — slavery of the mind that is.

I get followed around stores as if I am some sort of thief. My professors doubt that I am as intelligent as they are because I know ebonics.

We kill each other over territory and sell poison to our neighbors. There are more black men in jail than in college and more violent crimes committed in America now than 20 years ago.

Sometimes I wonder if we even think about what we are doing before we do it. I wonder if any of know that we have made ourselves slaves to our own society.

Look at the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nation, ‘nough said.

President Clinton wants to apologize for the slavery of African Americans 132 years ago. Does he know about the slavery of African Americans today? Does he realize this slavery has branched out to the rest of the country in a new and improved form?

In my opinion, we can’t give or accept an apology for something we didn’t experience, especially not if we can’t deal with the problems we have right here, right now.

ISU, Ames, Iowa, the Midwest, the United States is still in a state of slavery. No, we are not still buying and selling people as property on the block, but we are still slaves just the same.

Our minds have been shackled by the chains of ejumication, the irons of stupidity and the cuffs of complete ignorance.

The shackles are gone from the wrists and the ankles and have been replaced with the proverbial walls of misinformation and miseducation. This type of miseducation and stupidity goes a lot deeper than just being a Cubs fan.

Holla if ya hear me!

I’m out.

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Rhaason Mitchell is a senior in journalism and mass communications from Chicago.