APOLOGY WON’T LET US FORGET TRUTH
Mary C. Curtis
Charlotte Observer, NC
April 12 2007
I don’t want your stuff. I don’t want your house or car or big-screen
TV.
I have my own stuff.
That’s to clear the air for those who equate an expression of regret
with a demand for payback.
Perhaps now we can have a calm discussion of the N.C. Senate vote to
apologize for slavery, what it means and what it does not mean.
It’s history, not reparations. It’s honesty, not guilt or shame. The
apology started with slavery, but didn’t end there, just as abolition
did not end discrimination.
The apology covered the lynchings and segregated schools, the "whites
only" and "colored" signs, even in the Legislative Building where
laws crippled N.C. citizens.
Critics say an apology is inconsequential. But as anyone who has
nursed a hurt can attest, the words, "I’m sorry," are profound.
The senators — descendants of slaves and slave owners — realized
as much as they movingly acknowledged laws and customs that divided
by race well into the 20th century.
In 2007, it’s not about owning people, but owning the legacy that
slavery spawned — a legacy still echoed in housing, education and
employment. It’s realizing that the greatness of a country isn’t
diminished by its flaws.
It sounds easy, but isn’t, and not just in North Carolina. It’s natural
to speak only of the Constitution and "all men are created equal,"
and forget the decimation of Native Americans or how the government
confined Japanese Americans in camps during World War II.
It’s called selective memory, and it’s a human trait that crosses
national boundaries.
In Turkey, a law that criminalizes insulting Turkish identity can be
used against someone who hints at the country’s role in the deaths
of more than a million Armenians in 1915.
While elderly survivors shouted, cried and told their stories, the
Japanese prime minister continued to deny that Japan’s military had
forced Asian women into brothels during World War II.
Germany is open about its World War II sins. But neo-Nazi attacks on
immigrants prove not everyone’s learned the lessons of the past.
With slavery, the revulsion of human beings owning other human beings
is so great some try to soft-pedal it as a benign institution that was
here one day and gone the next, without leaving indelible footprints.
Slaves helped cast the bronze on the "Statue of Freedom" atop the
U.S. Capitol dome. Those slaves and their descendants own a piece of
this country, too.
John Lewis grew up a sharecropper’s son in Alabama, was beaten in
Montgomery, Ala., Rock Hill, S.C., and other stops on the civil rights
trail and now serves as a United States congressman, representing
the state of Georgia.
The last part of his story is so remarkable because the first part
is true.
Acknowledging our country’s truth — not reparations — is what
the N.C. resolution is about. So you can hold onto your toaster and
your TiVo.
I’m interested in other stuff — the beautiful, horrible, exhilarating
stuff of history.