Ambivalent - uncertain or unable to decide about what course to follow
Elwin Wilson, described as “a sad, sickly man, haunted by time,” feels ambivalent about his life spent hating black people. At the age of 72, in poor health, Elwin faces mortality and doesn’t want to go to hell.
“All I can say is that it has bothered me for years, all the bad stuff I’ve done,” Wilson says, speaking slowly and deliberately. “And I found out there is no way I could be saved and get to heaven and still not like blacks.”
According to the article written by AP Special Correspondent, Helen O’Neill, “Wilson has spent recent months apologizing to ‘the people I had trouble with.’” Wilson says he doesn’t know where the hate came from. He states that it wasn’t inherited, as his family was courteous and respectful of all people. He thinks he just fell into the wrong group of people; other white men who supported the KKK apparently guided the development of Wilson’s hate. “It was sport.” In recent months Wilson has apologized to some of the black folks he beat up, apologized for cross burnings, and hanging a black doll in a noose at the end of his driveway which are just some of the brutal acts he committed. He even went to Washington, D.C. to apologize to Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta, whose face he smashed in 48 years ago. Some folks have called him courageous, a hero for apologizing. He says he doesn’t feel like a hero.
Some of the folks he’s apologized to feel uncomfortable putting a name and face to a stranger who committed atrocious crimes against them years ago. They say that they made peace with those acts of violence and forgave the perpetrators years ago.
Forgive me for being suspicious but I can’t help but wonder about the real purpose for these acts of contrition. Can a man who states he’s never been afraid of anything or anyone suddenly fear God and hell? Could divine justice be the torment an individual suffers for past injustices they casually persecuted human beings with and called it sport?
Or, will the next headline read “KKK silences defector?”
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/04/us/AP-One-Mans-Apology.html
