How to Apologize for a Misogynistic, Classist and Racist Tweet

The #takeaknee movement to both raise more awareness about police brutality and to show solidarity with the disproportionately People of Color who have been unlawfully stopped, detained, beaten and murdered by law enforcement is more than just polarizing.

“Raising awareness” and “showing solidarity” are often derided as being more an act of self-expression than change-making. And they absolutely can be. The divergent reactions to professional and amateur athletes who have chosen to kneel during the national anthem, as well as those who publicly support them, have splintered like cracked glass on a windshield. But to one @MrRhettro I’d like to offer an alternate possible reaction for you to dissect before we dissect your apology for your reaction.

From my own hometown came a tweet that managed to be misogynistic, classist and racist all in one fell swoop of 140 characters.

“Because Rich South Eugene white girls know so much about police brutality … ” @Mr.Rhettro’s account has since been made private and the original tweet can only be found as screen shots on other people’s facebook pages. But the gist of it is that rich, young, white girls can’t/shouldn’t (?) express solidarity with people unlike themselves because they do not have firsthand experience with the issues they are now aware of. So are we deriding the empathy and education of our young people? The ones baby boomers love to call oblivious and self-centered and entitled? Or could we perhaps be proud of them for stepping outside their own (presumably) comfortable lives to empathize with the legacy of mistreatment experienced by so many of their fellow Americans? Is Mr. Rhettro assuming that all South Eugene High School students are rich? And is he implying that if they are they can’t be compassionate? Why did he capitalize rich?

Let’s consider another possible scenario. What if they didn’t take a knee? How many people would say, must be nice to be so unaffected by politics that you can focus on an extra-curricular game of optional sports. Isn’t that the very core of privilege? The freedom to separate “politics” and “race” from your daily life? As an optional topic you choose to broach if and when you feel so inclined?

But this is not the part that outraged my community. Mr. Rhettro, whose twitter bio says that he works hard because he has to support all of those on welfare, goes on to say that they should be on their knees in the bedroom, not on the field. This is the part that seems to have outraged my community the most. But I think it is equally offensive and simply continues to pigeon-hole these girls.

After the proverbial “firestorm of controversy” that inevitably blew up around this pederast, he responded with an apology that mostly sounded like he was owning his mistake. But he included a confusing and unnecessary superlative – “and most of all, the parents”. It sounds like you’re rank-ordering the offended parties. Here’s the problem with that.

You insulted the girls. Apologize to them. Period. If you would like to continue with additional apologies that is additionally gracious. But not necessary. And when you say “most of all” you are diluting the apology to the intended party. I hope the girls are the intended recipients of your apology. Although they are minors they still have agency over their own minds and bodies. Don’t apologize to their caretakers as though the girls themselves are less capable of being offended than their guardians. If you insulted the girls directly, don’t filter your apology through their adult parents as though they’re not even independent enough to understand an apology.

Apologize directly to the underaged young women you insulted. Let them decide if they’d like to accept it or not. Let them determine their response. If they want, they are the ones who should be quoted in the paper. Not their parents. If you are so inclined to apologize to their parents, teachers, administrators, neighbors, pets, The Academy, that’s fine.

Now here’s the guideline I’m reluctant to share. Because I don’t want racist sexist and/or classist assholes to parrot this insincerely to get themselves out of hot water. But I will say it anyway in the hopes that well-meaning people who make mistakes and accidentally offend their fellow human beings will apologize for what they did, not for what happened the bad things that happened to them afterward.

@MrRhettro, whose profile pic on his now-private twitter account is all black, apologized for what he said because “I did not consider the ramifications of the tweet I sent out last night.” This screams I’m sorry I got caught. Not I’m sorry for what I did. He says he is “prepared to pay for the consequences” with an air of integrity that I think is unearned since he appears to only be sorry for the consequences, not the root cause of those consequences – namely, his flippant sexism.

He goes on: “It was intended as a joke but quickly became more than that.” The “it-was-just-a-joke” excuse is a well-worn one. Sometimes that is exactly why what you said is offensive. It-was-just-a-joke is not a universal get-out-of-jail card for anything and everything that might come out of your mouth and/or twitter account.