Why I won’t forgive
Jez-eb-el, specifically, but not only them.
When you do something so incredibly fucking stupid and offensive, I don’t give a shit if you apologize. I don’t even pay fucking attention. I don’t care what kind of apology or nonpology it is or how much you care or how much other people find it convincing.
Because fact is, if you “apologize” and then go on with business trying to ignore whatever issue you displayed astounding ignorance on, you don’t deserve forgiveness, I don’t care how awesome you may be in other areas.
The only way you’re worth our attention is if you use that moment of stupendous foolishness to educate yourself and turn around and use that knowledge for something. To fight for the people you wronged.
And we can tell when its genuine, folks. We can tell when it’s done out of foot-dragging obligation/image maintenance vs. sincere desire to better oneself/one’s world. To leave things better than you left ‘em.
You can’t cut off my leg, but then give me a really smashing manicure and try to call it a day. What you do to make up for things matters.
Absence of idiocy is not enough.
That is all.
ETA: Of course, Jezebel didn’t even make a sincere attempt to apologize; this post seems to imply they at least did that much. They didn’t. And it wouldn’t have mattered if they did. Because in the meantime, there has been an absence of sincere attempts to make something good out of it. Instead, there has been an attempt not to make one’s own self look bad again. That is what I’m getting at.
Molly
| Monday, April 6, 2009 | 4:12 pm“Because fact is, if you “apologize” and then go on with business trying to ignore whatever issue you displayed astounding ignorance on, you don’t deserve forgiveness, I don’t care how awesome you may be in other areas.”
Totally reasonable and a good standard, but I cannot make myself hold President Obama to it, as hard as I try. And even though that was a really bloody stupid thing he said.
Otherwise: yes. Yes, yes. It shocks me how popular Jezebel is in my “crowd,” compared to the better (still imperfect) feminist blogs. Especially since, frankly, Jezebel posts too much and stuffs up one’s blogreader (also the reason I don’t keep up with Shakesville, even though it, unlike the big J, deserves attention).
vesta44
| Monday, April 6, 2009 | 4:32 pmYeah, I quit reading jezebel right after I started reading them. I can guarantee that if any of the posters or commenters had fibro, they wouldn’t be making fun of it as an imaginary “disease” made up to sell limited-use drugs. I’m just vindictive enough to hope that one of them gets fibro and has to learn how to deal with levels of pain that don’t even begin to register on a scale of 1 to 10 (yeah, my pain from fibro can be anywhere from 5 to 20 on that scale of 1 to 10 and I have to keep functioning anyway), and everyone tells them is just “all in your head” and doesn’t really exist. Poetic justice, I say.
vesta44s last blog post..Fat NHS staff to practice what they preach – get thin. ROFLMAO!
amandaw
| Monday, April 6, 2009 | 4:46 pmMolly — see, I hadn’t even thought of Obama’s “special comment” but that gets at it too. Yeah, he fucked up, he apologized, but what comes of it? Why do we focus so much on the apology and not the action? The internal emotions and not the very real external effects? He could step forward in so many areas– target the failures of the ADA, institutionalization, the frankly inhumanely anemic disability benefits, and even reframe health care as an important step toward advancing pwd. Which it IS. And that would be an acceptable, if politician-y, response. It would be going so much further than just “I’m sorry. Special Olympics sure are important. Plz to forgive and leave me alone about it now thx.”
That said, I share your difficulty treating him the same way we would treat a random website. It feels different. It’s hard to shun the same way. Too many other people who need him to perform, and they deserve help too.
annaham
| Sunday, April 12, 2009 | 12:09 amI’m late to the party, but I completely agree (as you know!). I haven’t the slightest idea why that site still gets linked in the feminist blogosphere. Urgh.
annahams last blog post..There’s a Storm Gathering…A CAMEL STORM.
three rivers fog » Open letter to Feministing
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