If 142 years doesn’t do it, how long do you suppose it’s going to take? Next you’ll be saying that all blacks should be in therapy.
I would never underestimate the truly horrible harm done to both master and slave by those years of bondage. We can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like. But for Heavens sake! This is no more real to this generation of blacks, who never experienced it or even have older relatives who did, than it is to whites. I fail to see how they are still damaged by the knowledge that it happened. It would seem to me that a lot more damage would be done to modern blacks by dwelling on the past wrongs than by putting it behind them as a race. There are certainly enough problems we all face now that require our emotional capital without dragging baggage along to hold us all down. I’m sure if I looked hard enough, I could find a lot of harm done to the Irish branch of my family when they first came to America. But who cares at this late date? I don’t need that. If I were black, I would be far more facinated by looking further back to Africa, to see what my people there were like than wasting my time and energy feeling agrieved. I just fail to see how all this guilt-trip stuff is acomplishing anything good for anyone. But if it truly helps anyone, I most heartily apoligize to all the blacks in Georgia and Alabama where I hail from for anything my ancestors may have done to yours and for the damage my states did. I can apoligize for George Wallace and Lester Maddox with all sincerity and shame for their actions.

The public display of Representative Frank Hargrove’s true feelings is old news, but it was a sobering reminder of the lingering ignorance and continuing denial of culpability by those thinking slavery ended with the Emancipation Proclamation.  Few people realize the egregious destruction was not the forced labor for 200 years without compensation, but the annihilation of the soul and character of millions of people of African descent, which would have taken more than Forty Acres and a Mule to rectify and erase. Those saying Black People ‘Should just get over it’ are repressing the damage they still suffer from that most horrific period in our history. With every whip of the lash from the slave-master or overseer—he or she lost a bit of their own humanity. Any first year psychology student could instruct some of the Just Get Over It People in disease of the Master-Slave relationship, which enslaves the master as much as the slave to the servitude of that pathological and co-dependent relationship. Maybe, one day light will shine on that dark and repressed area of the psyche of the Just Get Over It Crowd and they will ask for more time to mourn the lost souls of their ancestors.  York Van Nixon III 1/20/07   York@YorkVanNixonIII.Com

“There’s nothing wrong with checking to see of everyone would have still screamed, had Group B offended Group A.” (Terry Mitchell)

I was trying to think of example where people DID get upset after Group B offended Group A. But none come to mind. This is something else we need to correct.

I still say Michael Richards deserves a hearty round of applause for standing up for himself. NOT for insulting an entire race, mind you—that was foolish and wrong—but rather because he single-handedly set straight a group of bullying punks. Hopefully for life (e.g., I doubt they’ll do anymore heckling).

Phil Collins, the sensitive former lead singer of Genesis, once heatedly challenged an audience of hecklers to “meet (him) outside after the concert.” Ok, they were drunk Hollanders, but the race doesn’t matter anyhow. They ceased booing immediately after his challenge.

Not too many people have this kind of courage.

Come on, Richmond Democrat, you’re giving your party a bad name. No one is trying to make a counterfactual argument, as you try to spin it.

All I’m trying to do is a consistency check, i.e., to see if the reaction would have been the same, had the facts been the other way around. For example, if Group A offends Group B and everyone screams, there’s nothing wrong with checking to see of everyone would have still screamed, had Group B offended Group A. If you can’t understand a simple concept like that, then you’re beyond help.

What I find funny (really, I laughed) is the picture of the jewish delegate holding up a picture of his son as a prop for effect. The point is that Hargroves remark will stir up old hatreds that will hurt his son.

So, Mr. Hargrove…shut up, sit down and let us get back to stirring up old racial hatreds so we can hang the hate rock around the necks of YOUR children.

Race baitin today, race baitin tomorrow, race baitin fo’ever!!!

Now lets go get them Duke boys!

“What if Mr. Goode had attacked Christians?”

What, are you arguing counterfactually now?

What if Poland had invaded Germany in 1939?

Clearly the Germans were not at fault for WWII.

While I believe Mr. Goode’s remarks were completely out of line and Mr. Hargrove’s were partially so, I’m more outraged by the subsequent barrage of politically correct reactions. What if Mr. Goode had attacked Christians? I bet the response would have been muted. What if Mr. Hargrove had told southerners to get over the Civil War? I bet that wouldn’t have made national news.

Remember the outpouring of outrage (and deservedly so) following Mel Gibson’s and Michael Richards’ racist rants? But what about all the comedians who flippantly use God’s name in vain during their acts? What about all the movies that use this kind of language? Where’s the outrage over that? We become justifiably upset when certain minorities are slurred. But it’s perfectly fine to slur God? It seems that we’ve lost all sense of proportion.

A good example of this type of unfairness is when a man is falsely convicted of a crime, exonorated, “pardoned”,(meaning forgiven) by the government for something he did not do in the first place. The witnesses, jury, judge, prosecutors,ineffective defense attourney need pardoning. Not the falsely accused. They just need to have their name cleared and “forgiving” them just doesn’t do it.

Shucks, Larry! The main thing I respect about a politician is his maverick ability to think for himself instead of dutifully parroting party piffle. Like the departed and unmourned Sen. Allen, right up till he fell prey to foot-in-mouth disease. Clones are remarkably unproductive. Too high a price to pay for avoiding this type of party embarrassment.Forgive me, I’m trying to be serious.

Not wishing to take responsibility for something you did not do is not the result of decades old prejudice. It is an outrage to your sense of fairness. Will we still be apoligizing a hundred years from now? I feel no sense of collective, passed-down guilt for what the state of Virginia did over a hundred years ago or even during the Jim Crowe years. Let someone who participated apoligize. It shows a pettiness of spirit, an unwillingness to move on to expect one.