At least someone gets it. Two points for Mike Madden and the Tennessean.
Sen. Lamar Alexander was one of 16 senators who did not join in when the Senate apologized for its failure to pass a federal law against lynchings....
Although 84 senators signed on to the lynching apology, Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, did not. He said he preferred a resolution he introduced called "celebrating Black History Month," which condemned lynching and pledged to address racial disparities in education and health care. His version made no mention of the Senate's failure to ban lynching....
Civil rights leaders said they didn't understand why Alexander or any lawmaker would decide not to join the apology as a co-sponsor.
"An apology begins with an acknowledgement of wrongdoing," said Hilary Shelton, the director of the Washington bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "For those who weren't willing to do that, you have to pause and take wonder as to why they're here in the first place."
The Rev. Enoch Fuzz, president of the Interdenominational Ministers Fellowship in Nashville, said he was disappointed by Alexander's decision.
"There were lynchings that took place in Tennessee,'' Fuzz said. Tennessee lawmakers "should just be as proactive as they can to move our nation past the hurt and the history and the old wounds because of the terrible history of racism in Tennessee."
