By: Ben Johnson
So Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Riley
Cooper, a white guy, appeared on a recently surfaced video saying
the-word-that-begins-with-n-and-ends-in-igger-which-I-must-hypenate-euphemistically-just-so-we-make-laboriously-clear-that-I-do-not-condone-the-sentiment-behind-it.
The word conveys an idea so stupid and wrong and unjust and etcetera that we
all must run scurrying in the opposite direction lest any semblance of
association taint us for the rest of our lives. As it should be. It’s that bad
of a word.
Riley Cooper used that word because he is an
idiot, and he's an idiot not because he “got caught” or because he “stands to lose a lot of
money” or because he “works with a bunch of black guys,” but because that word
represents an idiotic thought, and it can’t even form on your lips unless your
brain is acting like an idiot. Being an idiot is and should be forgivable even
as use of that word should be a cause for shame and humiliation. Riley Cooper
should feel bad. He should reflect on the extent to which his current feelings of
shame and humiliation and fear for his livelihood dovetail with the feelings of
the historical recipients of the slur he used. And he should learn and grow and
become a person who doesn’t use that word because he doesn’t think that word
because he now feels too much empathy to be able to. But who knows if that’s
actually going to happen. He is an idiot, after all. It might be a tall order.
In the meantime, he is apologizing. We are
getting sadly used to this phenomenon. Person in the public eye gets caught
doing something idiotic, issues an immediate and vociferous apology that always
seems insincere because it’s a reaction to getting caught and not to any actual
epiphany about the wrongness of the act. This apparent insincerity is compounded
by the wording of these apologies. They are always deliberated on by a team of professional
handlers, and hence always seem stilted and overly cautious and hyper-articulate
and totally at odds with the actual personality of a person who would commit
the acts the person is currently apologizing for.
You are probably familiar with the speech. “To
fans, members of the organization, for anybody I hurt or offended, I take full
responsibility, I am seeking help to come to terms with, etcetera etcetera.”
The public apology is a big repeatable
charade. They pretend to apologize. We pretend to forgive. Life goes on and we
all grow more wary of each other. We will never know the extent to which
anybody in the public eye is actually sorry for doing a stupid thing. And also
we probably will never care. It’s not like Riley Cooper is a family member or
anything. We don’t need to forgive him for this. Most of us didn’t even know
who he was until this happened. We only know now because it’s such an easy
thing to condemn. “N-word bad” is a total Frankenstein no-brainer. The sports
media loves to condemn things that are easy to condemn. Look at me for example.
Even me. And I’m nobody.
Anyway, here’s what these people would say if
their apologies were about being sorry and asking for forgiveness rather than
damage control and money:
“We’re here today because I’m an idiot. I did
something that only idiots do. I am here to apologize for the idiotic thing I
did. I should not have done it. I did it, even though I could just as easily
have not done it. I went ahead and did it anyway. I don’t know to what extent I
thought to myself ‘hey idiot, maybe don’t do that’ before doing the thing I
did, but it was clearly not enough to stop me. I am an idiot, but even an idiot
should not do the thing I just did. I would like to apologize again for doing
it, and I’d like to apologize additionally for being a big enough idiot to even
think of doing it, and I’d like to apologize for not even stopping myself out
of a basic sense of manners and decency, which are really the first things any
idiot should keep in mind.
“Furthermore, being an idiot, I didn’t know
how idiotic this thing I did was until somebody who’s not an idiot told me. Can
you imagine being that big of an idiot and not even knowing it? That’s how big
of an idiot I am. Now my lifestyle and livelihood are in jeopardy because I did
this thing and because everybody knows I did this thing. That scares me. But
what scares me more is that I could be so big of an idiot and not think of
myself as an idiot. That should scare you people too. Because if I’m this big
of an idiot, who else out there is also this big of an idiot? Maybe the CEO of
a multi-billion dollar oil company, maybe your next door neighbor, maybe even
you. It’s worth investigating. I didn’t know I was an idiot until this
happened. It boggles my mind to even think about it. My mind boggles easily
because I’m an idiot.
“It’s my fault I did what I did. And it’s my
fault I’m an idiot, too. I mean it is and it isn’t. I was born and raised an
idiot, so there’s that. And my only job in life is to catch footballs for a
living, so it’s not exactly shocking that I might be an idiot. But everybody
should be expected to live and function in society, and part of that social
contract should be occasionally asking yourself if you’re too big of an idiot
before you do something like what I just got caught doing. I failed to do that.
I was too big of an idiot.
“Now I am here asking you to forgive me for
being an idiot, which should be easy to do, because everybody’s an idiot
sometime. I’ve been told by my handlers that all humans descended from apes in
our not too distant past, and looking at an idiot like me, I can totally
believe it.
“I am also asking you to forgive me for doing
the thing I did, which is much more difficult, because what I did wasn’t just
idiotic, it was also mean and hurtful and unjust and wrong. I was too big of an
idiot to consider that until you people showed me, and for that I am grateful,
and deeply, deeply sorry. I have to live with myself for the whole rest of my
life. I don’t ever get to be anybody else. And now that I’ve done this, it’s
not only the only thing you’ll ever think of when you hear my name, it’s going
to be in the back of my mind, too, forever. Gnawing at me. I will never be able
to escape it, and don’t want to. That would be irresponsible of me.
“I will own this, and will continue to own
this, forever. I will accept the shame and humiliation of having done this as
the only sign that I am a redeemable human being, and will therefore no longer
be capable of experiencing joy without a tinge of regret attached for the rest
of my life. I am telling you this not to communicate how sorry I am as a plea
for your sympathy in a cynical last ditch effort to preserve my livelihood and
lifestyle, but to explain the reality of my current situation. It’s possible to
fuck up so bad you can’t unfuck up, and that’s what I’ve done.
“Please let me play football. I promise to
treat it like the gift it is from now on. Thank you.”
