Thinking About The South: An Apology

I have had occasion to regret the tone and tenor of recent remarks here about the South. I have, apparently, carried some unresolved and unexamined bile with me for a very long time, and made the mistake of spewing it here in the column. I will not describe in detail a column item you can look up if you're that interested, because I choose not to repeat the libel. Suffice it to say that numerous people whose opinion I respect, including my own parents, have told me in no uncertain terms I was out of line.

My mother commented, in an echo of a comment made by a friend who asked that his remarks be kept confidential. How would I like it if people said Portland was a place they never wanted to visit because of the Meth epidemic or the regular police shooting of African Americans? And how would I feel if someone suggested that we'd be better off without Oregon in the Union because some Oregon politicians have behaved badly (including our once-sainted Bob Packwood and Neal Goldschmidt--one from each party).

I teach my students Freud's dictum that we most hate the people we are most like, and advise them to look to their own souls when they find themselves hating someone. On top of that, one of the things I find most despicable about the right is its demonization of its opponents. As the Cold War proved so vividly, when you are in the heat of battle, it is easy to become the thing you hate. I demonized a region and its politicians, as I have done for 40 years--and for 40 years I was wrong.

We must get out of the miasma of poisonous politics that descended on this country in 1998. People of good will on both sides of the aisle are going to have to accept that there is good in all of and that we can agree to disagree and meet in the center, not ram radical changes and solutions down the throats of our opponents.

Republicans are not bad and evil people. At the risk of being trite, some of my best friends are Republicans. They honestly believe they are doing what is right for the country. I honestly believe they are wrong. We need to keep the discussion at that level, or else experience eternal gridlock.

If not for the Orwellian implications, I would be tempted to remove my rant about the South from the Internet, which would make it difficult, albeit not impossible, to find. I have no desire to use Big Brother's memory hole, and I have mocked, in this column, GOP efforts (and/or failures) to cleanse websites of embarrassing historical artifacts. On the other hand, I frequently laud the Internet for its ability to allow us to correct mistakes that one could never correct in the dead tree media.

And so I ask--what do you think? Should I delete the offensive rant, in addition to recanting it, apologizing for it and promising to try not to write anything like it ever again?

And, of course, I am revising my opinion about the Civil War. I am now, as I always have been, sorry that our nation's regional disagreements had to be settled by force of arms. We were right to insist on an indivisible union and a federal system and we were right to accept the South's return.

I was even right that the South was responsible for a number of indignities in American political history. But the Bible advises us to judge not, lest we be judged. Matthew 7:3 asks, "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye." To say we'd have been better off without the South is to judge a region and its people by the behavior of a few--something I wouldn't appreciate if it were done to me and my region of the country.

The North has made mistakes, and done awful things to African Americans as well as others (e.g.: the Japanese in WWII). The North also was responsible for a number of indignities in American political history. The first step towards healing and reconciliation is for both sides to admit they've made mistakes.

I honestly believe the GOP side find it difficult to admit error and culpability, but someone has to take the first step. I was wrong and it was my fault.

Let the healing begin.