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Apologies

Nicholas Kristof sent a ?Message to Muslims? in his New York Times column yesterday: ?I?m Sorry?:

I hereby apologize to Muslims for the wave of bigotry and simple nuttiness that has lately been directed at you. The venom on the airwaves, equating Muslims with terrorists, should embarrass us more than you. Muslims are one of the last minorities in the United States that it is still possible to demean openly, and I apologize for the slurs.

I, too, am sorry, and so I would like to extend my own apologies. To Israelis, I would like to apologize for the bigoted and simply nutty columnist in one of our major papers who called your West Bank policy ?morally repugnant.? To Americans, especially but not only those who live in Arizona, I would like to apologize for that same columnist repeatedly calling you fearful, paranoid, bigoted extremists (recent example here), for accusing you of engaging in ?venomous and debased discourse about Islam? (recent example here), etc.

Since I?m not responsible for his columns in the Times and he certainly doesn?t speak for me, what sense does it make, you ask, for me to apologize for Nicholas Kristof?

Perhaps none, which is to say it makes at least as much sense as Kristof apologizing to Muslims on behalf of ?us.?

Full post as published by Discriminations on September 20, 2010 (boomark / email).