What the f--- is an “expression of regret”?
If you’ve been reading the news lately — and I haven’t — you may have noticed a well reported piece by unstoppable journalism force Ben Slivnick in Monday’s newspaper, “Report: Univ., slavery linked.” The story follows the quest of our esteemed university president, Clayton Daniel Moté, to say something about slavery while still not really saying anything.
Well, C-Dan — can I call you C-Dan? — from the campus’s foremost guy who says a ton of bullshit without actually saying anything of value, I’d just like to say, I see what you did there, compadre. People wanted an apology because the founder of this university, Charles Calvert, owned 52 slaves. Naturally, this was more than 150 years ago, so it’s more of a symbolic deal. No one’s alleging that you owned slaves yourself or anything, because you’re not that old, I don’t think.
So people wanted a sort of symbolic apology, or whatever. You delivered this beauty: “The university shares in the profound regret for the suffering and injustices.” People in the newsroom told me (I can’t read) this isn’t an apology per se; it’s actually an “expression of regret.” If I had done that when I ate all the cookies as a kid, my mother would have whooped the hell out of me.
What gets me, though, is that this wouldn’t be an issue if you had either just apologized or said nothing. Instead, you deliver this weird non-apology, and it’s just a head-scratcher.
You should have just been like, “Yo, hey, I didn’t own slaves — though I am very, very old, so I can see how you might wonder if I did — but on behalf of this university, I’m sorry that some people did. Our bad.” And then that’s a wrap. Case closed.
Look, I’ll do it right now: My ancestors came from Russia in the late 1800s, so there’s no way any of them owned slaves. Who cares? I’m sorry anyway. Slavery probably sucked really bad, so sorry that it happened, dudes who would like an apology.
Hell, I’ll apologize for whatever. Sorry that the Redskins suck. Sorry for George W. Bush. Sorry for Herbert Hoover. Sorry for the Steve Glickman cartoons (jerk). Sorry that you’re reading this right now. Sorry the Sudoku was too hard today.
Who cares? It takes one second to say you’re sorry, then you move on with your life, and we’re all happy.
Instead, my boy C-Dan has pulled this move where he’s just perpetuating the story. It would have been much easier to just say “I’m sorry” than to have concocted that mumbo jumbo about “the benefits and tragedies of that era.” Benefits? Oh, all of a sudden we love slavery now? That’s right, you heard it from my column, the source of all news on this campus: Dan Moté loves slavery.
Obviously that’s a joke, but why even give anyone a chance to misconstrue what you’re saying? Take two minutes, say “sorry” and peace out to go to a meeting or whatever. Problem solved.
And if that doesn’t work out and it’s not as easy as I’m making it out to be?
Well ... sorry.
Rob Gindes is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at gindes dot umdbk dot com.
i dont care what ne1 says, princeton review included, every1s so self righteous and write about teh stupidest crap ever
its all a waste of time, reporting crap about porn being shown, who the hell cares, watch pirates on ur own time on the internet, porn being barred at hoff isnt going to take away more and more rights, its porn and people all these "hipsters" think theyre so rebellious and for a revolution making changes are stupid and need to focus on more important things, idiots
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