A NATION OF COWARDS

It's really too bad black community leaders in Virginia and elsewhere, as well as the national media were so quick to leap to the stage to condemn as insensitive a state official's comment that black people need to "get over" the commonwealth's history of slavery. Oh, we can certainly understand that there are many reasons they would issue comdemnations, including that fact that it is morally reprehensible to enslave people. But on the less-than-altruistic side of the ledger, other reasons in doing so include the fact that it keeps community leaders in the public eye... it gets them air time and column inches, and their modeling of righteous indignation cues their followers into how they should behave.
The comments by the Virginia legislator reportedly came in response to a demand, by some person or group, that Lawmakers in that state issue an apology for the state's involvement of the institution of slavery. Now, putting aside the fact that no one in the curent legislature was even yet born, let alone supported the policy, when slavery was legal, shouldn't we ask if such a demand is even worthwhile? What would it accomplish? I mean, if a man breaks into your home, robs and shoots you, leaving you confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life, will an apology make up for the suffering you and your family endured?
And by the same token, what good are those who hold themselves out as leaders, but fail to assume a leadership role resolving deeply rooted social problems? ... Instead of climbing onto the stump to chastise someone who says something we find (rightly or wrongly) offensive, why didn't those so-called leaders avail themselve of the perfect opportunity to open a national dialogue aimed at resolving what is perhaps the most deeply rooted and contentious issue in American society? The fact that they didn't, marks them as cowardly and unfit for leadership, as all they have done is expressed pain and anger while failing to exorcise the source.... It won't be easy or painless, but real leaders help fix problems and don't use them to further entrench their social status.