Comments on: An apology in Alabama

By: smc

smc — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 05:43:29 +0000

Watching Chief Murphy on Maddow, I felt as though I was not just seeing a decent act, but a deeply decent man. I congratulate Montgomery, Al on having someone like that running their police department. It says every bit as much about the department as the apology.

By: Frances

Frances — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:10:22 +0000

The institutional apology is very different from the personal apology. You might say “Well it is easy to apologize for something you know you weren’t personally responsible for.” But in fact no apology is easy. The easy thing to do is to say “I wasn’t even born when these things took place, so you can’t blame ME!” That attitude tends to go along with an attitude of “it happened a long time ago and people who are still upset should just get over it already.” What Chief Murphy did goes so far beyond the typical pro forma acknowledgement that “mistakes were made.” He showed that he really understood the historical opportunity he had to advance racial healing and reconciliation. Both his apology and his actions to address the ongoing effect of the history of racism in the MPD make him a true hero in my book.

By: tanita

tanita — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 02:11:49 +0000

*RUNS* to watch Rachel Maddow.

By: sumac

sumac — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:15:33 +0000

“…never has a police officer offered to apologize.” That’s heartbreaking.

This is a piece of real good news.