Germany's president apologized to the Jews for the Holocaust.
Australians expressed regret for mistreating the Aborigine people.
The United States asked Japanese-Americans to forgive the country for forcing them into internment camps during World War II.
But despite repeated attempts, this country's elected officials have yet to formally apologize for 200 years of enslaving blacks and supporting the practice.
This year Maryland, along with Virginia and Missouri, could become the first officially sorry states.
It's a significant step, in theoretical terms, yet toothless in the world we actually live in, especially without reparations.
This country became rich because of slavery; at the height of the cotton trade, the U.S. slave trade generated billions of dollars of annual wealth (in today's dollars) for its craven, greedy proprietors.
And of course, one dollar went a far longer way in those times than today.
Slavery was an incredibly lucrative industry, and that money was certainly amongst the main reasons there was a civil war.
Who cares about the inhumanity of the business when there's vast profits to be made, right?
At the end of slavery, the newly-freed slaves were supposed to receive 40 acres and a mule.
But most were either swindled or terrorized out of what they were supposed to get.
200 years later, their descendents get a half-hearted apology from three out of fifty states.
It's easy to apologize if you have no plan to really make up for it.
So, essentially, it's a meaningless apology.
Thanks, for nothing.