Douglas Muir has issued an apology for making a controversial Facebook statement about the Black Lives Matter movement and will resume teaching his classes at the University of Virginia next week. An excerpt from his statement, as reported by the Cavalier Daily:
On October 4, I responded to a Facebook post about Black Lives Matter by comparing the organization to the Ku Klux Klan. I was wrong in my comparison and want to offer my profound apologies for my words. …
As I have come to learn the long, violent history of the Klan, it makes my comparison misguided and shows a misunderstanding of the past. I am ashamed to admit that I knew little about Black Lives Matter when I wrote that post. This lack of awareness is unacceptable for our civil discourse and most especially for an educator like myself. My post was an unfortunate example of what I tell my students never to do because it was criticism without investigation.”
Yeah, his original post was unfortunate. The Black Lives Matter movement is guilty of inflammatory rhetoric, but a comparison with the KKK with its lynchings and cross burnings was ludicrous.
All’s well that ends well, I suppose, although his statement does sound like a document one might sign when emerging from a re-education camp. One interesting line did slip into the statement: “I never imagined that my words would lead to threats against my family and my employees.”
I wonder what the story behind that statement was and how it might have shaped his apology.
— JAB
