When I posted my catch up blog yesterday I left out part of the Paula Deen saga. The apology. I told Raquel that was a blog unto itself. So here it is...
When is an apology not an apology? When do you hear someone say they are sorry and take away from it that though they might be sorry they aren't sorry for the right thing? Or at least you don't feel like they have apologized to you, or to who they have wronged? You know it when you hear it. When it just clanks in your ear wrong. When your reaction to the apology isn't one of forgiveness but one of disgust. Or disdain. Or just nothing.
I told you yesterday that I think the racial issues around what Paula Deen said years ago were blown up much bigger than they should have been. That I think she's being scapegoated so we all can feel better about ourselves. And I do believe that. But I also didn't like her apology. Or lack of one. And to be honest, I'm not sure she owed one to anyone. But by starting and stopping and floundering and mucking it up I think she made it worse.
I have to back up a bit. I'm not a Paula Deen fan. It's not that I don't like her, I just don't follow her. She doesn't cook things that I like to make, I think I've seen maybe two episodes of her own show and I just didn't enjoy them. I've seen her guesting on other cooking shows I do watch and I find her to be a bit too much. She's very loud, reminds me of my Aunt Darlene, you could hear that woman clearly from a half mile away. I'm not even kidding. She was loud. And Paula Deen is like that. It's her personality. She's big, she's all of that, all of the time. It's made her a huge star, but it's not my style so though I can appreciate that she is what she is, as she stated, I also don't watch her show so I had no real feeling toward her before all of this started.
So back to non-apology apologies and where Ms. Deen lost me. The first few she put out that were oddly edited and phrased were bad enough but the spectacle on the Today show Tuesday? With the weeping, or almost weeping, she had the facial expression and the choked voice but no actual tears, and the begging for someone to hit her in the head with a stone while at the same time saying she'd like to meet them? It was a mess. Let's start with the no tears weeping. That drives me crazy. Maybe her tear ducts just don't work, but it sure looks like a bad performance to get that worked up without the tears actually falling. Then there is the "he who is without sin" analogy she went for. I get it, you want to point out that you aren't the only one, but it's not one you can do for yourself without sounding like a petulant child. Only someone else can use that on your behalf.
The original story was Jesus pointing out to the crowd that they were all sinners so had no right to punish the woman. Then as they realized he was right he told her to Go, and sin no more. It's a story about judging others, showing grace and second chances. But it changes if you are wailing in a camera about wanting someone to throw a rock at your head and kill you right now if they were perfect and that you'd really like to meet them. It becomes "You did it too! It's not just me!" and that's a totally different story. Can't imagine the crowd would have dispersed if the woman they were going to stone said, "oh yeah? You did it too!"
And then there were the notes of the apology that were basically I'm sorry you were offended by what I said. See there is a subtle turn of phrase here that she was missing. A real apology is I am sorry I offended you by what I said, not I'm sorry you were offended by what I said. See the difference? One puts the onus on you. You said or did something wrong and you are sorry for the offense it caused. The other one is that you are sorry that the people listening to you were such candy asses that they got offended.
Again, I'm not even sure she owed anyone an apology. Maybe a statement, "In the past I have used language that I would like to go back and change, but I can't. As we mature we change and learn and our actions reflect that. I would like to apologize for my use of that particular word in the past and to assure everyone that I do not and would not use it again. I am deeply sorry that my past actions have stirred up so much pain but as we know better we do better and I hope that others are learning from my past mistakes and are going to do better as well." Or something along those lines. But she didn't take this path. Instead she took the victim route. She's the one that has been wronged (and I'm not saying that in a way she hasn't) she is the one that is shell shocked by the reaction. But she is a public figure making money off of an image and she needs to clean that image up a bit. A decent apology, a real apology would go far.
And it's not just Paula Deen who does the fake apology. We all have. We've all used the I'm sorry you got offended line. Or the I'm sorry but... Or the feeling that just because you said you were sorry it should all be fixed and go away. Sometimes, a lot of the time, it doesn't work that way. You can be truly deeply sorry for something you did but it's not going to change the outcome. When I was 6 we were riding the tram in Albuquerque and I broke this fiberglass key thing in the gift shop. Overpriced piece of junk that I knocked off the shelf and it shattered. My parents had to buy it because I broke it. I was really sorry. Deeply sorry. But they still had to pay for it and it was still broken. We took the pieces home and I glued them all together sort of thinking that would make it better. At least we would have the thing we paid for that way. It was still an ugly overpriced piece of junk that they had to buy because I broke it. Being sorry didn't fix that. Trying to glue the pieces back together didn't fix that. It just was. Sometimes sorry doesn't fix things.
But a genuine sorry can help.
My opinion is Paula Deen needs to figure out what she is sorry about and work out from there. And if it's that she said something she wishes she hadn't, not because it's damaged her brand but because it's not a word she would use today, then start there. But if what she is sorry about is that people got offended by what she said, well then she just needs to take a little time away and stop talking.
No comments:
Post a Comment