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On Apologies, Meaningful or Otherwise
(Yes, this is a response to RaceFail09. If you don't know what's going on with that, I humbly request that you not comment on this post. Or at least not until you've gotten yourself some edumacation first. There have been a lot of excellent summaries written, and poilass links them all here. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rydra_wong is also tirelessly keeping track of all relevant links.)
We all know that "I'm sorry that you were offended" is a fauxpology. Or at least, anyone with a lick of common sense already understands that much.
"I'm sorry that I hurt you" is much, much better. By all counts.
But just saying "I'm sorry that I hurt you" and leaving it at that... isn't enough. Especially in an internet imbroglio on the scale of RaceFail09. As one of the more vile participants in this whole thing keeps repeatedly harping about, it's important to own your shit. Now, he likes to keep repeating that phrase without really owning it himself, so here, let me explain what owning your shit REALLY means:
I means that when you apologize for your shit, you state exactly what you did, and to whom, and then make your apology.
"I'm sorry that I hurt some people" isn't enough.
"I'm sorry that I lied to Avalon's Willow about agreeing with her criticism, I'm sorry that I didn't stop commenters on my blog from hurling racist insults at her, I'm sorry that I demanded that everyone drop the debate without realizing that walking away from racism is something that I can only afford to do because I'm white..."
Any one of those things would have been a truly meaningful apology. That's owning your shit. That's demonstrating that you understand what you did wrong and how you hurt other people. And that makes your apology sincere. Not only that, but it makes you courageous and admirable. Or it would. I'd better use the subjunctive, here.
Maybe it's just me, maybe my standards are too high, but just saying "I'm sorry that I hurt some people" - especially when said apologist has demonstrated multiple times that she's blinded by her own privilege, has some difficulty understanding just exactly what she did wrong, and furthermore, has confessed to previously making a fake apology to another blogger - it makes it hard for me to read a simple, vague statements like this as anything more than another fauxpology.
Bear says that she's sorry that she's "made a lot of mistakes in recent days." Well, what does that mean? Is she sorry that she lied to Willow, or is she sorry that she confessed to the lie? Does she even think that what she did is wrong? How can we know if she understands how she's hurting people, or if she's learned anything at all from this? How can we trust her apology when she won't even tell us what she's apologizing for?
I don't think that my standards here are too high. This has always been the way that I've approached apologies, online or offline. Heck, I remember a fight that I had with someone in middle school that ended with her saying "I'm sorry that I made you cry" and me being incredibly upset because she still refused to acknowledge what she'd done to make me cry in the first place. God, sixth grade camp was the worst week of my life. But that's ancient history now, and I don't want to think about it anymore.
I'm not writing this to kick Elizabeth Bear when she's down. I'm writing this because I really want to believe Bear's apology, I want to believe that she's a trustworthy ally, I want there to be one more good ally in F/SF fandom instead of one less. But I can't buy Bear's latest apology, and I think it's only fair for me to state why.
"I'm sorry that I hurt people" may be a real apology (as opposed to a fauxpology), but it isn't a meaningful apology.
Meaningful apologies are rare, because real apologies require owning your shit. Acknowledge what you did wrong and who you hurt: State it. Then apologize. Or else it looks to the rest of us like you've learned nothing.
Edited to add: Now this is what I'm talking about. Not to mention awesome. Bear - and the rest of us - should learn fromqueenofhell's example. She states exactly what she did wrong, explains why it was wrong, and then owns her shit. She doesn't just own her shit, she pwns her shit. That's brave, that's classy, and that's definitely what we need more of on the internet.
Edited again: Go here, read this. It's exactly what I was trying to say with this post, but stated far more eloquently.
rydra_wong is also tirelessly keeping track of all relevant links.)We all know that "I'm sorry that you were offended" is a fauxpology. Or at least, anyone with a lick of common sense already understands that much.
"I'm sorry that I hurt you" is much, much better. By all counts.
But just saying "I'm sorry that I hurt you" and leaving it at that... isn't enough. Especially in an internet imbroglio on the scale of RaceFail09. As one of the more vile participants in this whole thing keeps repeatedly harping about, it's important to own your shit. Now, he likes to keep repeating that phrase without really owning it himself, so here, let me explain what owning your shit REALLY means:
I means that when you apologize for your shit, you state exactly what you did, and to whom, and then make your apology.
"I'm sorry that I hurt some people" isn't enough.
"I'm sorry that I lied to Avalon's Willow about agreeing with her criticism, I'm sorry that I didn't stop commenters on my blog from hurling racist insults at her, I'm sorry that I demanded that everyone drop the debate without realizing that walking away from racism is something that I can only afford to do because I'm white..."
Any one of those things would have been a truly meaningful apology. That's owning your shit. That's demonstrating that you understand what you did wrong and how you hurt other people. And that makes your apology sincere. Not only that, but it makes you courageous and admirable. Or it would. I'd better use the subjunctive, here.
Maybe it's just me, maybe my standards are too high, but just saying "I'm sorry that I hurt some people" - especially when said apologist has demonstrated multiple times that she's blinded by her own privilege, has some difficulty understanding just exactly what she did wrong, and furthermore, has confessed to previously making a fake apology to another blogger - it makes it hard for me to read a simple, vague statements like this as anything more than another fauxpology.
Bear says that she's sorry that she's "made a lot of mistakes in recent days." Well, what does that mean? Is she sorry that she lied to Willow, or is she sorry that she confessed to the lie? Does she even think that what she did is wrong? How can we know if she understands how she's hurting people, or if she's learned anything at all from this? How can we trust her apology when she won't even tell us what she's apologizing for?
I don't think that my standards here are too high. This has always been the way that I've approached apologies, online or offline. Heck, I remember a fight that I had with someone in middle school that ended with her saying "I'm sorry that I made you cry" and me being incredibly upset because she still refused to acknowledge what she'd done to make me cry in the first place. God, sixth grade camp was the worst week of my life. But that's ancient history now, and I don't want to think about it anymore.
I'm not writing this to kick Elizabeth Bear when she's down. I'm writing this because I really want to believe Bear's apology, I want to believe that she's a trustworthy ally, I want there to be one more good ally in F/SF fandom instead of one less. But I can't buy Bear's latest apology, and I think it's only fair for me to state why.
"I'm sorry that I hurt people" may be a real apology (as opposed to a fauxpology), but it isn't a meaningful apology.
Meaningful apologies are rare, because real apologies require owning your shit. Acknowledge what you did wrong and who you hurt: State it. Then apologize. Or else it looks to the rest of us like you've learned nothing.
Edited to add: Now this is what I'm talking about. Not to mention awesome. Bear - and the rest of us - should learn from
queenofhell's example. She states exactly what she did wrong, explains why it was wrong, and then owns her shit. She doesn't just own her shit, she pwns her shit. That's brave, that's classy, and that's definitely what we need more of on the internet.Edited again: Go here, read this. It's exactly what I was trying to say with this post, but stated far more eloquently.
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If someone apologizes for something without actually naming and owning her sin, it sure as heck sounds like she's just trying to save face.
And I won't even touch Bear's martyrdom with a ten-foot-pole. Gawd. Even in her "apology" post she was all like, oh I want to delete my livejournal because people are being so meeeeaaaaaaaan, but I'll be brave and refuse to bow to their awfulness! (*eyeroll*)
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I by the way called Ms Bear on the lie, which she insists wasn’t a lie, but that she only thought Willow was partially valid because she’d only read the beginning of the book…please! Willow read what she could before the triggers within became to much for her to put up with. I think that speaks volumes. I see lots of backtracking happening in Ms Bear's case and not much effort to take steps to make up for what she said and really be prepared to listen.
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There is no way to reconcile this:
This thing is my fault, but not in the way you probably think. It's my fault because I accepted criticism of my book that I knew to be untrue, that I knew to be based on a shallow and partial reading (a reading of the first chapter of a 160,000-word novel), because I felt it was important to serve as an example of how to engage dialogue on unconscious institutional racism.
With this:
My reasons for what I did were that her reading is, indeed, valid, given that she commented only the first chapter of the book, and because I did not feel that defending myself would cause anything except the explosion that we now have. It wasn't disingenuous. What I said was true: I agreed with what she wrote in her post, a lot of which was about media fandom. I chose not to point out the errors, because I knew it would look like temporizing.
Willow's reading is "shallow and impartial" but then it's also "valid."
Her criticism was "untrue" but still Bear "agree with what she wrote in her post." Bear trying to weasel and say that she only agreed with the parts of Willow's post that were about things other than her book is eyebrow-raising. Especially when you go back and look at her original response to Willow (http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1544999.html) - the one that opened with "You're right. I'm sorry." Sooooo infuriating to know that she didn't mean it. In that post, she wasn't responding to Willow's broad critique of PoC representations in media. She was responding specifically to the stuff Willow wrote about her book and her Cultural Appropriation 101 post. Again, sooooo infuriating for her to retract that now. And then claim that she's not actually retracting anything.
"This thing is my fault, but not in the way you probably think" is such a... revealing turn of phrase. It sure reveals a lot to me about how Bear is approaching this whole thing, and not in a good way.
BTW, for what it's worth, I'm sitting here and cheering every time that you and the other commenters in that thread catch Bear in one of her blatant contradictions. Not because I'm happy that Bear is lying through her teeth, but I'm happy that there are people like you exposing hypocrisy when they see it.
I hope that Bear will learn from this because people are forcing her to learn from this. I doubt it, though.
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I think that’s what really shook many of the POC and whites that admired the fact that she handled Willow criticism so well. We even used what she said as an example on “this is how to say you’re sorry in this situation”. Even when things got nasty, we still respected Ms Bear for handling the initial criticism well…and then she takes it back and wonders why we’re all show mad?
I want to feel safe in the fannish community, I want my friends and my children to feel safe in the fannish community.
I really want Ms Bear and many others to learn from all of this. Most days I'm hopeful that these well respected authors will start listening and learning, but I'm getting damn tired of waiting for it.
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Amazing how she could tell the anti-racists to pipe down on that post. (http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1544999.html?thread=30890023#t30890023)
ETA: Citation. Because god forbid any anti-racist makes an unsubstantiated claim about her real behavior.
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Wow. And y'know, I was all set to believe the traffic excuse. I've had similar happen to me - having the comments section of a post explode while I was at work, coming home in the evening to find lots of HEY NOT COOL spooged all over the place - but arrrrrrrgh, she lied about it again!
Yyyyyyeah, Bear's definitely more interested in saving face than in actually owning up to her mistakes here.
Good catch, BTW.
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And well, I guess she kind of did.
I'm not sure whether it is better for my opinion of her to believe that she's deliberately rewriting history, or that she's managed to convince herself of all this and so isn't actually lying?
Bear is now baleting lots of her old posts, (http://rydra-wong.livejournal.com/158650.html?thread=1845434#t1845434) despite promising not to. (http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1584153.html?thread=32184601#t32184601) Maybe they'll be back, soon. But lots of 403 Forbidden for the Bear posts on Willow's Timeline. (http://seeking-avalon.blogspot.com/2009/01/timeline.html) (I just tested it. Wanna start a pool on how long it lasts?)
Fixed html.
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You're right. My apologies for jumping to conclusions.
Bear is now baleting lots of her old posts.
Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
Because the meeeeaaaaaaan people made her do it, apparently.
I understand the temptation to delete an embarrassing post, especially one in which you show your ass to the internet at large. (Been there! Done that!) But haven't people figured out by now that deleting only attracts *more* scorn thrown in your face? At the very least - assuming that she's just trying to save face, since apparently not deleting because it's the right thing to do is too much to hope for at this point - at the very least, if she's trying to save face, she should know by now that deleting is one of the worst things you can do in that regard.
Flocking is pretty much the same as deleting IMHO, too.
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martyrdomapology post, she'd edited it to say she'd decided not to delete anything because people had advised against it.Guess she's not going to stick by that. And not even going to touch the whole "you shouldn't delete because this is now a public discussion and your desire to whitewash yourself doesn't outweigh other people's right to know what's been said" thing.
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