I had planned to drop the Apology for Slavery theme — let’s talk about what we can do to improve the lives of all Virginians now instead of wallowing in the past — but the Times-Dispatch published a story yesterday that was so outrageous, I have to respond. Here is the lede paragraph of a story written by Olympia Meola and Pamela Stallsmith:
Del. Frank D. Hargrove Sr., who recently disparaged blacks and Jews with comments about apologizing for slavery, had a great-grandfather who owned a slave.
Unbelievable. Where do we begin?
Let’s start with the “scoop” that Hargrove’s 22-year-old ancestor owned a slave, a 60-year-old woman — a fact revealed by “a search by librarians at The Times-Dispatch and the Library of Virginia.” What does that have to do with anything? Does this fact somehow de-legitimize what Hargrove has to say about apologies for slavery? If so, does it de-legitimize anything that everyone whose ancestors once owned slaves have to say? According to family lore, one of my ancestors, living in Delaware, did own slaves but manumitted them in his will. Does that mean my views carry less weight — four generations after the offense — than the views of someone whose ancestors never owned slaves?
Even the T-D writers are vague about why it matters. They wrote (my italics):
Still, the family connection to slaves did not sway the lawmaker’s opinion. He maintains that he will not support a proposed resolution for a state apology for slavery because he did not own any slaves.
What’s the implication here? That, even though he decries the evils of slavery, Hargrove should be racked with guilt for the actions of a great grandparent? There are people in this country who seriously argue that certain criminals shouldn’t be held fully accountable for their own actions, as in, say, killing someone, on the basis of the He-Was-Depraved-Because-He-Was-Deprived defense. The result: One class of citizens should not be held accountable for crimes they themselves commit, while Del. Hargrove should be morally accountable for an offense that his great grand-father committed.
Then there’s the notion that Hargrove “disparaged” blacks and Jews. No, he did not “disparage” anyone. The T-D lede implies that he made remarks that were insulting, degrading or invidious. He didn’t do that: He made comments that some blacks and Jews from the opposing political party made a loud protest of finding offensive. You can disagree with the notion that blacks should “get over” slavery, but only someone who uses moral indignation as a political weapon would characterize it as “disparaging” of blacks.
Hargrove also likened apologizing for slavery akin to the idea of Christians asking Jews to apologize “for killing Christ.” How does that “disparage” Jews? The clear intent of his message was that Christians should, in fact, “get over it,” that the Jews did not owe an apology. Del. Yet David Englin, D-Alexandria, a Jew, misconstrued Hargrove’s statement as to suggest that he was repeating the charge of Jews as Christ Killers — the absolute opposite of Hargrove’s crystal clear meaning.
Of course, in his era of exquisite political correctness, the matter of historical fact need not even enter the debate. There is not one Christian who reads the Bible or recites the Nicene Creed who would deny that Jesus died at the hands of Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator of Judea. The slander of Jews as “Christ killers” derives from the fact that the High Priests of the Jerusalem temple arrested Jesus, interrogated him, delivered him to Pontius Pilate and then demanded that the Romans, who held the power of capital punishment, execute him. The early Jews never disputed this account. Within a few decades, as we can deduce from the rhetoric of the early Christian Jews, Pharisaic Jews were characterizing Jesus as a fraud and a sorcerer who had it coming. A few centuries later, the Jewish scholars who compiled the Talmud recorded oral accounts in which Jews within the Pharisaic tradition were quite happy to take full credit for executing Jesus — eliminating the intermediary role of Pontius Pilate altogether!
The problem (from our perspective) is not that the temple priests were culpable to some degree for Jesus’ death (a historical fact) but that later generations of Christians use the offenses of long-dead priests, who presided over a temple that had been destroyed by the Romans long before, to tar the entire Jewish faith. In other words, the Christians declared the Jews guilty for the sins of their ancestors.
Hargrove said that’s wrong. In a supreme irony, the T-D now implies that Hargrove is somehow guilty for the sins of his ancestors.