Slavery?

Oh, God... someone brought up the spectre of slavery apologies in the Herald.

Okay, the Associated Press brought it up. After the NAACP did. I can just see the Soundoff lines catching fire. The Herald blogs already have.

I'm just going to go ahead and put myself on the line here. The "South Park" guys had it right this past week.

I'm a white dude. My ancestors no doubt were into some unsavory stuff, and others of my ancestors may have had some unsavory stuff done to 'em.

None of that is a defining part of who I am, though. There aren't still visible reminders in daily life of any badness done to "my people" in the past.

To quote George Carlin, "White people give the blues! They don't sing 'em!"

As such, I can't hope to understand what a rebel flag on a rednecked-out pickup truck may feel like to a black person. I'll never know what it's like to grow up in a place knowing that 160 years ago I would have been owned by someone.

With that in mind, I don't see what's wrong with an apology. Personally, I don't think it would change much. But then, I don't get it, do I? Maybe it would have a good effect.

Here's how to word it to make everybody happy. Imagine Sonny Perdue's voice saying these lines.

"Hey, y'all, slavery was a bad thing. It's a damned shame that Georgia was involved in it. None of us up here in Atlanta could ever properly apologize for it, and that's another shame. The people who should talk to you are dead and gone, and the people they should be on their knees to begging for forgiveness are gone, too. It's taken too long, but I'm here to say that as a state we collectively realize that slavery was a crime against humanity and a sin against God. We can't change the past, but we can say that we're sorry for some of the things that happened in it."

But it'll never happen.