In a February 1 piece for Tribune Media Services, Stanford journalism
professor and Pulitzer Prize winner Joel Brinkley wrote about how
Vietnamese people are aggressive because they eat so much meat,
especially dogs.
That's an oversimplification of his article,
but not by much. Brinkley reached that baffling conclusion after a
ten-day tour of Vietnam, and the response to his ill-informed piece was
swift, fierce and overwhelmingly critical. For direct rebuttals, you can
read the comments section on the link above, or this, or this, or this.
What interests me about this fiasco, however, is what happened next. A
deluge of Tweets, blogs, Facebook posts and more illuminated how and
why the piece was unacceptable. Tribune Media Services posted an apology
for the piece not meeting their journalistic standards. A Change.org
petition for Brinkley's resignation from Stanford received hundreds of
signatures.
And Brinkley apologized. Sort of. Like so many people
of privilege before him, however, Brinkley's apology reads more as "I'm
sorry you're offended" than "I'm sorry I said something offensive."
Specifically, Brinkley wrote: "Vietnamese
seem to be particularly sensitive to criticism, like a lot of people
around the world... Some of them have told me in emails that this makes
them sound barbaric, which was not my intention." He also wrote: "The
column I wrote this week on Vietnam and its dietary practices has
offended a great number of people. That was not my intention at all, and
I’m sorry for that."
The latter one isn’t too bad, as far as
apologies-I’m-still-not-buying go. But the interesting thing is the
repeated use of a phrase that seems to be a trend in public apologies: "it wasn't my intention.”
This is a handy, oft-used rhetorical device used to absolve oneself of
responsibility after saying or doing something offensive. It may sound
meaningful, but remember: if you burn a house down and people get hurt,
you don't get away with it because you thought the house was empty. If
you drive your car through the front window of a restaurant, the damage
is done whether or not you meant to do it. If you eat my lunch because
you thought I didn't want it, I'm going to be hungry regardless of your
intentions.
Responsibility isn't about our intentions. It's about the impact of our words and actions.
And
sometimes, our hearts really are in the right place. But saying
something hurtful out of ignorance or carelessness is only marginally
better than saying something hurtful out of malice-- and the impact is
exactly the same. To truly make amends for hurting someone, first you
have to be a big enough person to want to make amends. Then you have to
openly and respectfully listen to what people are saying. And then you
have to act on that new knowledge-- whether in a sincere public apology
that clearly illustrates you understand what you did wrong (beyond “poor
word choices” or “awkward phrasings,” because we all know that’s not
really the issue), a commitment to being more careful and conscientious
in the future, some sort of concrete act of contrition, or ideally, all
three.
This is much bigger than Brinkley, of course (though I’m
tempted to publish the private email he sent to a friend that pretty
much proves he’s not sorry at all, but suffice to say I don’t think he
learned much from this, except he now believes Vietnamese “are the most paranoid and sensitive people on the planet”).
It’s also bigger than any “famous-person-messing-up” story. This plays
out every day, in classes, workplaces, and all kinds of social spaces.
Learning how to let go of our egos and defensiveness, to make mistakes
gracefully, to apologize sincerely, and most importantly: to cultivate
the awareness and conscientiousness to avoid those mistakes in the first
place - this is the kind of work we all need to do.
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