Those are just the big ones — I’m ignoring the scores of other, lesser-known incidents that come up quickly with a little more digging. It’s utterly ridiculous, and it is a problem.
Apologies have become a way of life for America, and it doesn’t matter anymore if you’re a celebrity, a bar owner, or just some kid on Facebook; you still need a well-dressed, carefully manicured PR person on hand with a pre-typed, insert-sin-here "I’m sorry" email that can instantly be sent out to all major news outlets ... just in case.
It’s not that these apologies aren’t warranted — some are and some aren’t — but I’m not judging that. It’s about what it says about us as a society that we demand them so often and for every little thing, even though most of the statements (and the mea culpas that follow) come from the rich and famous and are put out to placate some tiny, terribly sensitive group that just can’t handle their own outrage.
But the crocodile-tear atonements are rarely genuine and never convincing, and the person in question is usually much more regretful that someone caught them saying their offensive thing instead of being upset with themselves for saying it.
America has embraced the victimhood culture — that’s very clear — and in 2014, everyone is a fragile snowflake with feelings that blah, blah, blah. But whatever happened to having a "thick skin"? Whatever happened to being tough, to brushing off what someone who’s not worth a minute of our collective time said? Have we considered why we care in the first place?
Did it help — or hurt — my life when "Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson made some extraordinarily ignorant comments about minorities and gays in a magazine article last year? They were off-color, certainly, and they made me think less of him as a man. But after watching one episode of the show, could I really be shocked that he’d think that way? And did it affect me in the least that he did? After his half-hearted apology, which A&E wrenched from his mouth by suspending him from his own show, did I sleep better?
People are not perfect. They say and do stupid things and act in bizarre ways (celebrities even more so). That might be off-putting; it certainly is when people do it in our personal lives.
But we need to stop crying. If you don’t like what a celebrity is saying, don’t buy what they’re selling. It’s as simple as that. Freedom of speech is a right in this country, even when we don’t like the speech, and the constant call to publicly shame someone for this or that detracts from real issues, worries, and problems.
And if you don’t agree with this, write to someone else. Because I’m not apologizing.
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http://www.northjersey.com/community-news/no-apologies-keep-em-to-yourself-please-1.1063355
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