Leslie Taylor

Recent columns

• Catalog flood control
• An elusive American Dream
• The price of personal expression
• A plaque, a certificate and public awareness
• The plummet from grace

• Column archive

I may have thrown my colleagues a bit when, at a morning editorial board meeting earlier this month, I expressed opposition to a proposed resolution that Virginia apologize for its slavery history.

How could I not get behind it, someone asked. I had mixed emotions, I explained. Yes, an apology was a well-meaning symbolic gesture, but all I could envision were some state legislators reluctantly and disingenuously voting in favor of the apology, simply for appearance's sake.

And oh yes, to remind the constituency back home, lest the good folk think otherwise, that not one bigoted bone rested in their bodies.

Is that really apologizing, I asked? Show me you atone for slavery's legacy by your actions, I said. Where are the real, genuine gestures across the racial divide?

Then I shut my mouth.

At home that evening, I watched a TV news segment about events planned in Lexington to mark the 200th birthday of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. A formal ball was in the works, with those attending in period dress.

That triggered something in the ol' memory banks, fading though they may be.

I remembered not too many years ago, a friend telling me of plans somewhere in the Roanoke Valley for a party with a "plantation" theme. Appalled, but intrigued, I prodded for more information. It was a private event, a very refined affair with attendees in period costume drinking and dining and dancing.

And for the sake of authenticity, party planners had requested of the restaurant catering the affair that all wait staff be black. The restaurant owner, wisely, refused to honor the request.

I was horrified, stunned -- troubled by the sheer ignorance.

But those kinds of strolls down memory lane give a certain segment of our population a certain pleasure, I suppose. There is power in reminding black people from whence they came, to remind how easily that boot heel, once again, could be placed at the throat, I suppose.

The reminders are constant. All "macaca" moments don't happen when video cameras are rolling or a slip of the finger sends an e-mail sailing.

They happen in grocery stores, in public parks, in private gyms, in mall food courts, on ball fields.

In day care centers.

My son was only 4 years old when he quietly uttered on the way home from his Roanoke preschool that a white classmate told him -- after inviting other classmates, all white, to her birthday party -- that he was not invited because her father didn't allow black people in their home.

For the life of me I cannot recall how I handled that moment. The pain is still with me; what happened after I processed my son's words is not.

Other moments are more vivid -- even those from my own childhood, spent in all parts of this country and overseas.

The white junior high school classmate who rescinded her invitation to me to come over after her mother told her "the neighbors might talk" if they saw a black person walk through their front door.

The motel "no vacancy" signs that would flash on when our family car pulled up in the parking lot. It wasn't until years later that I understood why our out-of-town family car trips were all-day and nonstop.

My parents shielded their children from the impact of senseless, hurtful bigotry as best they could. I tried to do the same with my own child -- still do, even now that he is a 21-year-old college junior.

And I suspect I will continue to, as long as there are people who cannot understand what pain the legacy of our past continues to inflict.

My initial views on a state slavery apology have changed. There are too many old wounds left to heal.

Taylor is a member of The Roanoke Times editorial board.