This story was in the news today - online, on TV, and on the radio. I doubt that anyone who truly listened or read what was said was offended. Here’s the online version of the story:
Lawmaker Under Fire for Slavery Comment
By BOB LEWIS
APRICHMOND, Va. (Jan. 16) - A state legislator said black people “should get over” slavery and questioned whether Jews should apologize “for killing Christ,” drawing denunciations Tuesday from stunned colleagues
Del. Frank D. Hargrove, 79, made his remarks in opposition to a measure that would apologize on the state’s behalf to the descendants of slaves. In an interview published Tuesday in The Daily Progress of Charlottesville, Hargrove said slavery ended nearly 140 years ago with the Civil War and added that “our black citizens should get over it.”
The newspaper also quoted him as saying, “are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?”
Black lawmakers swiftly denounced Hargrove’s comments. “When somebody tells me I should just get over slavery, I can only express my emotion by projecting that I am appalled, absolutely appalled,” said Del. Dwight C. Jones, head of the Legislative Black Caucus.
Del. David L. Englin also criticized Hargrove’s remarks, recalling that his grandparents were driven from their homes in Poland “by people who believed that as Jews, we killed Christ.”
When Hargrove rose to speak, he told Englin he didn’t care about Englin’s religion. “I think your skin was a little too thin,” Hargrove said as lawmakers gasped and groaned.
You know, Hargrove is right. Slavery was wrong on every level. As a country, we ARE sorry that slavery ever happened. It is a blight on our nation’s history. However, it has been over a hundred and forty years since it was ended here in America. There is no one alive today who owned slaves and no one alive today who was a slave. The battle for equal rights took a long time, but that battle has been won. Let’s move on. We are each responsible for ourselves now. We aren’t responsible for what our long ago forebears did or didn’t do.
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January 18th, 2007 at 1:19 am
I also agree, but let’s add 9/11, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, The Holocaust, WW2, WW1, and the rest of history to the list. After all, we’re never going to see yesterday again, are we?
January 18th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I do not know about “getting over it.” But we need to put in the context of a world of race as well as class discrimination. We have given some of the young Black students that white people were living like those we saw in “Gone with the Wind.” while aLL people of color were in slaveRY. Some White people owned slaves and some white people gave their very lives working to do away with Slavery. Most caucasions came here with the clothes on their back (certaily far better than to come on slave ships) at the saem time, most whites were illiterate and worked sun up to sun down to survive. It took a long time for them to become informed and “civil” enough to build a civilization of equal rights.
As to “the Jews” killing Jesus. Silly error. Jesus was a Jew. The first disciples were Jews. Jesus tells us he gave his life….
God is not a respector of persons. We are all inter-related and at the same time responsibile for ourselves.
January 20th, 2007 at 1:19 am
Get over it. Like it was said before, no one alive today is a slave/slave owner. Equal rights has been established, so shut up. On top of being equal, there is affirmative action. Not much room to complain, considering the “white man” is the most discriminated race in the USA.
March 19th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
We should not forget the suffering and injustice that the practice of slavery inflicted upon African-Americans and the great length of time it took for equal enforcement of civil rights to become the norm, rather than the exception. At the same time an apology (much less so-called “reparations”) can only be accepted and given by whomever was wronged and whomever wronged them. The time to ask for this apology was circa 1866 or so, not 2007. Despite the hardships their forfathers endured, African-Americans are far better off in the US in general compared to those who never left Africa, having suffered under Colonialism and even worse ruined economies at the hands of penny-ante dictators who followed, attempting to lead them on a primrose path to Socialism but instead have ended up in a far worse and corrupt place. Look at Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, for instance.
The bigger issues remain in the here-and-now. These are what we need to deal with, not harping on past issues that are now simply what they are - lessons to be learned from so they aren’t repeated - but not a millstone around the neck of the current and future generations.