I don't want you to think...
My sister has very correctly pointed out that any apology which includes that phrase is not an apology. When someone says "I don't want you to think..." in an apology, it's tipping the hand which holds things which, if you thought critically about them at all, you'd notice are pretty much contrary to the stated position of the apologizer.
I also recently read another blogger's rant about what is NOT an apology. In it, she points out that things like "I'm sorry if you..." are usually not good ways to start a sincere apology.
So how about this apology for the CCSU student paper's "Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It" editorial, which according to the Hartford Courant was "posted on a bulletin outside The Recorder's office in [CCSU's] student center"?
"We didn't know the campus community as well as we thought we knew, and because of that that's why we're getting this backlash and we're sorry because of it," Rowan wrote in the apology.
yeahhhh...
What immediately springs into my mind on reading this is the Pee-wee Herman character yelling in a childish parody of sarcasm (or a parody of childish sarcasm) "I'm so SORRY!!!!!" It's not just how poorly phrased this statement is which makes it hard to see as a sincere and carefully considered apology. It's the structure of the propositions which really drive home the point - a point I could accurately paraphrase as "you people don't know how to take a joke."
Talk about adding insult to injury.
Ever witness someone try to tell a joke and fuck it up, a lot? And have you ever witnessed that when it's just not a funny joke to start with? I mean, it's painful enough when it's just some stupid pun or on the scale of a knock-knock joke but when it's an "off color" joke and some moron is fucking it up nine ways from sunday, well my god you just kind of want to crawl out of your skin, don't you?
That's is what I see having happened here. And as is the case in the situations where the racist/sexist/homophobic moron is inflicting an unfunny, poorly crafted "joke" on an audience, the response should be that he is booed off the stage or out of the spotlight. No, don't fire him. Boo him. Everywhere he fucking goes. He wanted attention? He should get it. It will help him learn the apparently too subtle for his sensibilities difference between "bold satire" and childish mocking.
2 comments:
My God, I read both the ass bag from CCSU and the ass bag from Dartmouth and it only reinforces my deeply held belief that Aileen Wernos (spelling?) ought to be canonized. What the fuck? The CCSU maggot really should suffer serious physical harm. He does sound like he's trying to inflame without any concern for how much that could hurt anyone and that's what's usually considered "joking" but he also sounds like he's testing the water for disclosure. He sounds almost like he wants to gloat about something he did but he knows he wouldn't be able to get away with that.
As for the shit-stain over at Dartmouth, it's very telling when he claims he could call the professor who voiced an objection to his cartoon, a "man-hater" because she researches domestic violence, feminist theory and concepts of masculinity. She didn't make any "jokes" about men being harmed. And although we can't see his cartoon without tithing to a rag, his defense seems to be that he's just reminding women that they shouldn't drink on the weekend like men can. They shouldn't forget that they can be victimized. They should remember to be affraid that someone will violate them. He thinks he's a big help to the women on campus for doing this but actually he's helping to further the political agenda of rape. He's helping to tyrannize women and possibly he's too stupid to see it. However, given his little sneer about man-haters I think at some level he knows what he's doing.
You know, normally I can tell when my sister comments on the blog. but this one...I'm not sure. There's someone on my station list whose prose this resembles as well. The use of "shit-stain" and the excellently coined term of rag tithing do suggest it the former.
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