How Many Times Do People Need To Apologize?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Sep 13, 2009
Over the last few days, we've seen a couple of public outbursts that have stunned a lot of people.
The first was Wednesday night during President Obama's speech to Congress, where Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina reacted to something the President said by calling him a liar from the balcony.
The second was Serena Williams losing her control at a critical point in her Tennis semifinals match and berating a lines person, and subsequently being penalized that cost her a chance to go into the finals.
We see these lapses of judgment more often lately, and whether people apologize or not, the lack of decorum is staggering. However, there's something else that's happening a lot lately, and I'm of the opinion that it's time some things change in this regard.
Just how many times is someone supposed to apologize for their lapses of judgment? How do we determine that every single lapse of judgment is the same thing, and deserves to be judged the same?
What Joe Wilson did was embarrassing, but he got caught up in the moment. He immediately apologized; let it go. What Serena Williams did was embarrassing, but she got caught up in the moment; let it go. These were minor issues overall. No one got hurt. There wasn't anything premeditated in any of those things that either one of them did. Let's move on.
What's worse is someone like Glenn Beck calling the President a racist, saying he hates white people. Someone tell me which family member President Obama hates more, his mother or his grandmother, if he's racist. These are the types of people who need to be watched, who believe they're allowed to say whatever they want to say as it regards race, and then saying the rest of us just don't understand.
The first amendment doesn't guarantee free speech; it never has. But as you know, I've always said that people can say whatever they want to as long as they're ready for the consequences of their actions. Sometimes the consequences don't match the actions; sometimes they do.
There needs to be perspective on some of these things; not all indiscretions are the same thing.
I hope that I am not too ‘off’ with this comment. It seems that we are able to accept one simple apology from people in our everyday lives like family and friends. However, when people who are celebrities and public figures screw up (as humans do sometimes), the public expects their remorse to be as ‘public’ as possible. What if we all had to issue several apologies for one simple act of foolishness or bad judgment? Of course I am not including acts that have deliberately caused people to lose their lives (murder). That would be a whole new blog. But, this is only my opinion.
Hi Nikki; it’s a great opinion. I think there are times when someone does something openly stupid that they may owe an apology to the public, but once is usually good enough. I do have to say, though, that Kanye keeps doing it over and over, and the act has grown tired, so that his apologies mean nothing to me at this juncture. Joe Wilson; his was openly stupid and disrespectful, but he apologized immediately to the President and said his peace the next day, and to me, that should have been enough.