By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff Writer

My parents taught me to take pride in having good manners. Sometimes having good manners means apologizing. Just being able to simply say “I’m sorry” lets another person know that you truly didn’t intend to step on their toes, misspell their name, or interrupt their conversation.

While an apology doesn’t make everything all right, it shows true penitence and a desire to do better, or even make amends.

But you have to mean it for an apology to be worthwhile, and if you offer the apology in anticipation of getting something in return, it’s no more sincere than a hyena’s smile.

Given that our society has become one of mega-mea culpa, I wasn’t terribly surprised to see the outcome of the N.C. Democrat party’s review of the state’s study of the 1898 Wilmington riots. The riots left an indeterminate number of people dead and set back race relations in what was one of the South’s most progressive cities. The riots were recently the topic of a state-sponsored study.

I watched the historical study pretty closely after it was announced, and I’ve read (nearly) the whole darn thing. It was far less of a politically-correct attack on dead white Southerners than I anticipated, and the commission deserves a kudo for that.

But.

Our state’s Democrat leadership voted to apologize for the party’s role in the riots. Never mind the fact that not a single member of the state’s Democrat leadership was even alive during those riots. Never mind the fights started over city council seats (which are and always have been, at least on paper, non-partisan). The apology is a silly move, in my opinion. Worse, it’s a step I think will deepen the racial gap rather than bridging it for a better society – and all for more votes.

Now, I’m not criticizing the party because of my own affiliation; I have enough reasons without this one.

I’m criticizing them because this idiotic, politically-correct move is little more than a blatant vote-grab.

By apologizing and mentioning that manna-from-Heaven word, reparations, the Democrats aren’t making penance. They are hinting that along with their apology, they might be able to force someone to cough up money for descendants of the victims of ‘98.

What I fear these mud-slingers are trying to do is gather more political support from blacks, at any cost.

Rather than trying to find some way to get black teens to stop killing themselves and society with crime, drugs, violence, immorality, a lack of self-respect, and a dependence on the government for subsistence, the faux apologists are instead encouraging blacks to blame someone else (again) for their problems. And maybe the party will get a little political gravy on those potatoes, too.

Now, let’s get something straight: I never said the majority of black people are not drug users, welfare mothers, or hoodlums. They’re just people, like everyone else.

And I know full well there are slackers of every race who also take advantage of the welfare system, but the people of any color who make a living off my tax dollars are a scathing column for another day.

The hard-working black citizens are often overshadowed by the folks who don’t want to work to improve themselves or their families. Those people want to rabble-rouse and blame everyone else for their problems, for financial or political profit. The insincere, unnecessary apology by the Democrats will only make that whining easier.

I don’t approve of what happened in Wilmington 109 years ago. I think it’s a terrible mark of shame on our state and our country. But the riots of 1898 have nothing to do with modern black unemployment, crime, unwed mothers, low graduation rates, literacy rates, low voter turnout, etc. I doubt anyone today is suffering financially because their great-great-grandparents left town.
My blood ran cold when I heard the mention of financial compensation to victims of descendants. Like the government-endorsed extortion called slave reparations, the move by the state Democrats is just that – a move that says if you promise black people you’ll give them money, they’ll vote for you, so let’s make sure they vote Democrat.

Do they consider black voters idiotic?

A number of my relatives owned slaves, and, yes, my family made a good bit of money off their labors. Much of my family’s money (only some of which was earned through slave labor) melted away in the Great Depression, but the children of those slaves received farmland after emancipation; their smallholding and tenant-farming grandchildren made those farms profitable. Their great-grandchildren turned that farmland into some of the most valuable real estate developments outside of Washington, D.C.

Yes, my family’s case is unusual, but if someone comes up to me and demands that I apologize and/or pay for something my ancestors may or may not have done, I’ll probably do something which will really warrant an apology – as well as a defense attorney and a bail-bondsman.

I’m not trying to apologize for, or justify, slavery or racism of any kind. It’s important, however, to understand the times and society where such things came from, and to judge those considered guilty by the standards of their time, not our own supposedly more “enlightened” era.

Recognizing a heinous ancestor’s act and apologizing for it are two different things entirely. It’s bad enough that people want to use historical racism as a way to get money. For a bunch of modern liberals to accept blame for something that happened before they were born isn’t an apology – it’s a slap in the face, a callous attempt to play the race card for votes, and a good way to avoid actually trying to solve problems.

And if you disagree with me on that, then truly, I’m sorry.

Weaver is a staff writer at The News Reporter. He may be reached via e-mail at jeffweaver@newsreporter.biz, or via telephone at 642-4104, ext 227.