Yesterday, an interesting AP story appeared on the Fox News website, reporting that legislation was being introduced in Georgia that would call for the state to "apologize" for it's previous involvement in slavery and Jim Crow-era discrimination.
Speaking as a black man, I can appreciate that legislators would like to formalize the state's regret for participation in the nefarious business of trading and enslaving other human beings. But as an American, I can also respect the inherent divisiveness associated with dredging up a past that most citizens, especially the melanin-challenged among us, would just as soon put in the rear-view mirror.
There is an engaging passage in "The Audacity of Hope", the #1 bestseller by U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.), in the chapter entitled simply "Race":
Rightly or wrongly, white guilt has largely exhausted itself in America; even the most fair-minded whites...tend to push back against suggestions of racial victimization — or race-specific claims based on the history of race discrimination in this country.
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