House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA)
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise
regrets, but does not apologize for, slavery. Anyway, that was his position in 1996, six years before he spoke to a white supremacist group. After his vote against the apology for slavery:
Scalise later backed a watered-down version that expressed “regret” for slavery. But the article identifies him as one of two lawmakers on the Louisiana House and Governmental Affairs Committee who tried to kill the original resolution, which apologized to African-Americans for the state’s role “in the establishment and maintenance of the institution of slavery.”
According to the paper, Scalise argued that there was no reason to apologize for something that had been done more than a century ago, before he was born.
“Why are you asking me to apologize for something I didn't do and had no part of?” Scalise is quoted as saying in the newspaper. “I am not going to apologize for what somebody else did.”
So because Steve Scalise did not personally enslave anyone, he somehow thought it was an outrage that he should be asked, as a representative of the state of Louisiana, to sign onto an apology for the state's role in slavery? This was not a resolution involving Steve Scalise personally apologizing for his own personal role in slavery. This was about the state of Louisiana. Which had a poor record there, like too many other American states. But apparently that apology would have hurt Steve Scalise's feel-feels.
It's interesting, though, that the guy who insists that we shouldn't think his views are in any way reflected in his decision to speak to the European-American Unity and Rights Organization does feel that it would be a personal affront to him for the state of Louisiana to apologize for slavery.