This is Carol Platt Liebau, honored to be guest-blogging here for a couple of days. Just wanted to start out by thanking Gateway Pundit for his appearance with me last night on St. Louis’97.1 FM Talk. (I’ll be in tonight once more for Crane Durham from midnight to 3 a.m. — so tune in if you’re up!).
One of the topics covered during last night’s show has special relevance in light of the fact, as is pointed out below, that this marks the 150th anniversary of the Dred Scott decision. Apparently, some Missouri legislators are pushing for a formal state apology for slavery, which would make Missouri only the second state in the country to offer such regrets.
Surely everyone agrees that slavery was a terrible and ugly blot on the United States’ history, and truly a sin and a crime against both God and man. But it’s far from clear that an empty apology — offered by those who bear no moral culpability whatsoever for slavery — will really achieve anything. While we’re at it, let’s just apologize for the 10,000,000 people killed by Stalin . . . because all of us had just as great a role in that.
What’s more, there’s something both pathetic and objectionable to reading that African-American adults are calling for an apology because it “would send an important message to young blacks who view themselves as second-class citizens.” What an awful lesson to teach young people: That their own feelings of self-worth are contingent on an expression of regret that really means nothing. Wouldn’t it be better to encourage people to get an education, delay childbearing, get married and stay married — and hold that up as the way to escape any feelings of inferiority?
Last night, callers suggested that part of the push for an apology might be as a precursor for calls for reparations. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
