This is how you apologize

We live in a culture where, as The X-Files once said, “Apology is policy.”  No one seems to behave properly because it is too easy to enjoy being bad and apologize later. 

After playing in the MLB All-Star Game Milwaukee Brewer pitcher Josh Hader had to apologize for racist and homophobic tweets he made when he was 17. It helped that a couple of his non-white teammates stood up for him, but he had to fall on the old excuse that the tweets were made when he “was a child.”  Okay, technically 17 is not old enough to vote, drink, or buy cigarettes, but it’s not like he was randomly typing letters and happened upon the combination, “I hate gay people,” something he not only believed but felt was important enough to share with the world on twitter.  As apologies go it’s not perfect, but better than most apologies from athletes.  MLB sentenced him to complete sensitivity training, which seems a little late given the tweets were done seven years ago, but those things are so boring it will discourage him from saying those things again (at least on Twitter).

Another person doing some apologizing was James Gunn, the author of the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies, who was fired  from the third chapter after some inappropriate tweets surfaced. If you go to the linked article and read his apology in full, you should come to one conclusion; this is the gold standard of apologies. No self-indulgent explanation of why he made the tweets, other than he was an idiot.  No “I’m sorry if anyone was offended,” which makes it sound like the problem lies with the offendee, not the offender.  No, “This happened a long time ago and I’ve learned my lesson so let’s put it all behind us, can I have my money now?”  Gunn says what he did was wrong, takes full responsibility, and accepts the consequence that he loses a lucrative, high prestige job doing something he is very good at. 

A good apology is a rarity.  So many people try to use the message to justify their actions, or make it seem like they are the put-upon party.  Some people seem to be saying “Sorry I wasn’t PC when I called that [fill in the slur] a [fill in the slur].”  My all-time favorite is when an athlete calls someone a homophobic slur, and explains by saying it was a joke, he didn’t mean it literally.  Yes, because saying a man had sex with other men would be a huge insult, and you would never say that about another man except in jest. 

Gunn’s apology is such that I hope he gets a chance to be forgiven and to work on movies, maybe even Guardians of the Galaxy 3.  There are some actions for which no apology can ever be adequate, but there are some where forgiveness is appropriate.  Maybe he’s a lying scumbag who regrets nothing, but he certainly sounds sincere.

I wish I had more to say on the subject, but that’s it.

Sorry.