A sports announcer commentating a baseball double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Kansas City Royals earlier this evening, was heard using a gay slur on air. After returning from commercial just before the seventh inning of the first game in the double-header, Reds commentator Thom Brennaman's mic appeared to go live earlier than he expected it to, and he was heard on the broadcast saying "One of the [gay slur] capitals of the world", shortly before beginning his regular commentating. Likely because of the timing there was no context for his comment; it's not clear whether he was referring to Cincinnati or Kansas City or some other city, nor is it clear who we was talking to.
The response by the viewing public, as reflected on social media, was swift and predictable. It is unknown when or how Brennaman himself became aware of it - whether he saw the social media reaction or was told by his bosses. But during the fifth inning of the second game, he began addressing the incident in an extremely contrite manner.
Quote:
"I made a comment earlier tonight that I guess went out over the air that I am deeply ashamed of," Brennaman said. "If I have hurt anyone out there, I can't tell you how much I say from the bottom of my heart I'm so very, very sorry. I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith."
After calling a home run that happened in the midst of his statement, he continued.
"I don't know if I'm going to be putting on this headset again," Brennaman said. "I don't know if it's going to be for the Reds. I don't know if it's going to be for my bosses at Fox.
"I want to apologize for the people who sign my paycheck, for the Reds, for Fox Sports Ohio, for the people I work with. For anybody that I've offended here tonight, I can't begin to tell you how deeply sorry I am.
"That is not who I am and never has been, and I'd like to think maybe I could have some people that can back that up. I am very, very sorry and I beg for your forgiveness."
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Thereupon he handed the broadcast over to one of his associates and left the air. The Reds subsequently announced that Brennaman had been
removed from the broadcast and suspended.
I provide the above description for context, since I'm using this incident as an example. However, I'm less interested In Thom Brennaman and this incident specifically, and more in this phenomenon at large - where people's doing of something socially unacceptable is exposed to the public and in their apologies those people then claim to feel "deeply ashamed" and stress that the comment or act "is not who I am". Sometimes, as Brennaman did, they invoke their "faith", presumably as a character argument. They ask you to believe that they really are a good person despite what they were caught doing or saying.
I have to admit that my first instinct in these cases is to distrust. I don't doubt the genuineness of Brennaman's contrition. But my assumption (and I'm hardly alone in this thinking) is that people in these situations are "sorry they got caught", rather than sorry for doing what they got caught doing. It does not make sense to me that Brennaman for instance really feels his remark was shameful; his appeal to the public to believe that he is a genuinely good person implies that he understands the remark would throw doubt on that characterization but again, this doesn't make sense - Brennaman was not alone in the studio when he made the remark after all. There were other people in the room, whom he considered friends or at least colleagues, who obviously heard the remark directly when he made it, and he obviously wasn't concerned in the least that any of them would think badly of him for making it, or that he would be expected to clarify after making it that the remark was "not who he was", as if some alien intelligence had briefly possessed his body and made him use a slur against his will.
Given that, it would
seem to me to be the case that his claim to feel ashamed by the comment and that the comment "was not who I am" were both simply lies. And again, Brennaman is just one example here; these same things tend to be true of
everyone who gets caught out and is compelled to publicly apologize like this. They always claim that the remark "is not who I am", they are always "deeply ashamed", despite the fact that they're always caught doing the deeds or uttering the words among people they clearly don't expect will judge them harshly for it.
But, admittedly, my entire thesis here is (again) based on an assumption. I might be wrong, and I'm interested if anyone has different ideas about what's going on here. Is it really that simple - these people are ordered or compelled by public pressure to apologize, so they make up a bunch of baloney that sounds good or ticks the requisite boxes and that's all there is to it? Or am I being far too cynical, and it's possible that after getting caught joking in racist or sexist or homophobic, etc ways with their friends, these individuals really are becoming "ashamed" or coming to understand how bad what they said really was?
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2YjbOCy
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