Apologies Accepted

Marta Kauffman created a little TV show called "Friends" and it was a giant hit for ten years.  Over the years, the show received some criticism for lacking diversity.  Marta heard the criticism and felt it to be unfair: of course her popular TV show was being singled out for criticism.  People are jealous and they will rip your TV show to shreds if given the chance.

Then all of a sudden it was 2020 and the culture shifted.  Race, diversity, and inclusion were now part of the conversation.  Looking back, it's easy to see that critiques around race, diversity, and inclusion were both valid and ignored by Hollywood.  Marta took a long hard look at herself and was embarrassed by what she saw.  She apologized for the part she played in systemic racism and took some steps to make sure diversity becomes a crucial element in all her future work.  She also made a giant donation of money to ensure that other people receive education in issues around diversity.

Representation of diversity in Hollywood is improving, from 11% of films in 2011 to over 45% of films in 2021.  Films starring diverse casts do well in the theatre and streaming.  Diverse faces and voices are all over the internet (hi) thanks to YouTube, podcasts (hi again), and platforms like TikTok and MySpace (just checking to see if you are paying attention).

As Robin Thede stated at the showrunners forum at ATX 2020, "When you know better, do better."  Words Marta, and many others (hi), plan to live by.

Lizzo is a superstar performer and a superstar person.  Some fans reached out and took objection with a word in her new song Grrrls, explaining that it is commonly used as a slur against disabled people.  She was accused of being ableist, forgetting that disabled people are alive in the world and have the same feelings as anyone who has a slur used against them. Lizzo took fast action, re-recording the song and changing the word, then issuing an apology.  Lizzo explained that she understood the power and hurt that words can inflict and would never want to subject others to that same kind of hurt.  That should be the end of the story, except some people claimed that the word isn't a slur and is used differently in other communities (in a harmless non-slurry kind of way).  Lizzo hasn't said more on the subject but her actions and apology are pretty clear.

The history of the disabled movement (that feels like it should be a pun, but it is not) is one of prejudice, disregard, and a few disabled people who met at a summer camp in 1971 and by 1977 had changed the world forever in only 26 days.  Ableism is about to get a big dose of sorry this episode of Apologies Accepted!

Our first request and a huge thanks for the story idea!  It's one of the most memorable apologies ever given by a corporation. The Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 was the largest environmental disaster in American history.  11 million gallons of oil covered 1,300 miles of coastline and killed off 250,000 birds and thousands of marine mammals.  The Exxon Valdez story has it all: a drunken sea captain easily blamed, an unqualified pilot operating without radar, corporate greed, and an innocent town full of hardworking people awakening to a tar-black sea - it was the biggest story of the time and 30 years later is a story that continues to prove that corporations are greedy liars who greed and lie.  There's a reason that Exxon was fined 5 billion dollars in punitive damages, and it can be summed up in two words: corporate negligence.  And there's also a reason why that fine was reduced by 90% to $500 million dollars: greedy liars.

It's 30 years later and there are still 55 tons of oil on the beaches of Alaska.  But don't worry because Exxon did great and is bigger than ever!  They barely even remember the spill but they are pretty sure they acted quickly and heroically, no matter what those sleepy townsfolk might have said about it at the time.  And look, who needs so many birds anyway?

Certainly not UFOs.  It's almost impossible to connect UFOs to birds, or to oil spills for that matter.  But we find a way!

Who is Eric Lander you are asking?  He served as the Science Officer for the Biden Administration.  He lasted eight months.  He resigned after accusations of bullying and sexism forced the White House to say "ummm, hey, wait a minute, this is supposed to be a stupid-easy cabinet post, why are we hearing so much about you."  Eric Lander had the chance to be a real life Dr. Spock, the first Chief Science Officer on Planet Earth.  Instead he made his staff feel undervalued and apparently this was a super common occurrence when those people happened to be women.

It's not like this came without warning.  Eric had to make some public apologies before he was appointed.  He explained during his Congressional Appointment hearing that sometimes he behaved in ways he wasn't proud of and in the same hearing then also apologized for understating the contributions of two female scientist who helped with the discovery of CRISPR technology.

Eric happens to have been the President and Founding Member of the Broad Institute (if you are smart you've heard of it and if not...well you've heard of it now so welcome to the smart club).  The Broad Institute happens to be in a patent war with UC Berkley over the discovery of CRISPR and the legal dispute also happens to involve the two scientists whose contributions to the CRISPR field Eric had understated in a published paper (coincidentally, these two Nobel Prize winning scientists also happen to have vaginas).  

What is CRISPR you ask?  Well, it's like the internet was in the 1990s: it's this weird thing that people are talking about now that sounds really sci fi and in no way impacts you, and five years from now you will be guzzling some gene enhancing solution to change your eye color to match your shirt.  That is a promise.

Back in 1969 a small group of 8 police officers went into the local gay bar to conduct a weekly shakedown of the mafia-bar-owners for some cash and to hassle some queers.  The Stonewall Inn was the night home to all the queers: gays, lesbians, transgender people, drag queens, and assorted randos.  The cops went in on a normal night, just before midnight on June 27th, ready to check some genitals (for real) and grab some cash; they came out a few hours later on the morning of June 28th to a brave new world, cashless and bruised - beaten by a pack of queers.  There were some hurt feelings and it took 50 years for the police commissioner of the NYPD to apologize publicly for the years of weekly harassment and beatings that the gay community endured at the hands of local police.

The events on June 28, 1969 gave birth to a movement, and pride parades, Queer Nation, ACT UP, Lambda Legal, HRC and gaydom in general.  Gays and allies alike owe a big thank you to the brave people who knew how to fight and how to throw a good party at the same time.

But the fight is far from over - all minorities are feeling this today.  The fight never ends, even after the apology is offered.  We all, BIPOC, women, queers, really sexy good looking people, we all are in trouble as history tries to repeat itself - get ready to fight because the fight is ready for you.

Juneteenth is now a nationally recognized holiday.  If you haven't heard of it, it's the day that the Union Army liberated the last of the enslaved people in the US.  They rode into town and decreed "you were freed two years ago" and the 250,000 newly emancipated people celebrated.  The following year they celebrated again, but then some laws came down that prohibited black people from publically celebrating anything ever.  Even emancipation.

Juneteenth was still observed privately by families and churches, but public celebrations were legally forbidden to black people - for about 100 years (and counting).

Fast forward 156 years and now corporations are celebrating right along with everyone else by selling Juneteenth plates, cups, wine, and ice cream.  It was the Juneteenth Ice Cream that raised some eyebrows - mostly maybe because Walmart tried to trademark Juneteenth (which is like trying to trademark "Thanksgiving" or "Christmas") but also maybe because it was a rip off of a black owned ice cream brand but also maybe because it was just plain distasteful (c'mon, you have to give us that pun!).

13% of the US population is black, but 21% of Walmart's employees are black.  Somehow none of those black employees were in the decision room when someone decided to trademark the word Juneteenth and someone else decided "it's the freedom for me" would make a great slogan.  

Hi, Walmart - we thought we were clear with the Christmas Sweater fiasco but apparently not clear enough: you need to call us and ask for our input before you ever release another product.  We'll be glad to pitch in, and with our help, you'll never again have to appear as a special guest star on Apologies Accepted, the podcast.  

Luftwaffe (sorry, sorry, we mean Lufthansa) airline had an issue in early May.  Apparently a handful of people had not worn their face masks properly (or at all - it's a bit confused as to what actually happened) on an international flight from NYC to Frankfurt, Germany.  The 5 or 10 people were jewish and on their way to Hungary in observance of a holy day of memory.  Luftwaffe (sorry, sorry, we mean Lufthansa) decided that ALL 100 to 150 JEWISH PEOPLE ON THE FLIGHT WOULD HAVE TO BE DETAINED AT FRANKFURT AIRPORT FOR 24 HOURS.

Yes, because a few people disobeyed a rule, everyone of the same ethnicity was held at Frankfurt airport, surrounded by 25 German police officers, and told they could not board any Luftwaffe (this time we mean Luftwaffe) flights for 24 hours.  It didn't matter that the 100 people were strangers to each other, not all part of the same club or the same family - they just shared jewishness in common.  Non-Jewish people on the same flight were allowed to make their connections without issue.

Luftwaffe issued an apology for the "accidental" antisemitism.  Their slogan is "Say Yes to The World" and it seems like they their Frankfurt team sort of forgot that Jewish people are part of the world.

We've revised their slogan to more accurately reflect their corporate values: "Say Yes to the World (but no to Jews)".  You're welcome, Luftwaffe airlines!  And welcome to the world of Apologies Accepted, where we also say yes to the world (but no to antisemitism).

No surprise that the US Government conducted secret radiation tests on civilians in the 1940s and up through the 1970s.  It's almost not even worth mentioning that the radiation was injected secretly, without warning or consent, into innocent people to see what happens.

What happened was a formula that allowed scientist to backtrace from your internal bodily radiation levels to the point of exposure, the Langham Power-Function Model or Y 5 a X2b. Oh, and a bunch of people died, but not from radiation sickness! They were terminally ill to begin with.

Bill Clinton apologized for these secret radiation experiments in 1995, but we have to go all the way back to 1860 to understand what radiation is, what did its discovery mean to science, and how does all of this get from Madam Marie Curie to the passage of laws around informed consent?

Hot Irish twin brothers, Dave and Steve Flynn, are mega-vegan influencers and owners of The Happy Pear, a café and lifestyle brand (and podcast!).  They love helping people get healthy and happy.  They recently gave some advice around beating breast cancer – eat mushrooms!  There was also some stuff about increasing your soy intake that became mixed up with the idea of vegetables increasing or decreasing cancer…it’s confusing because none of it is true but it’s all science-y enough that it starts to sound believable.

Some real-life doctors took exception to the brothers’ mushroom advice and some people got mad so the twins, who are super nice guys, went online to apologize for hurting people’s feelings.

The apology hurt some more feelings and we’re here to walk you through the Happy Pear story and dispel some myths that some lying vegans want you to believe!  What is a vegan, where did they come from, and most importantly of all, why are the vegetarians so jealous of them?

Rachel Dolezal became world famous on June 11, 2015 when a reporter asked her if her father was white.  This seemed like an odd question, why would anyone care?  Weirdly, people cared.  Rachel had been presenting herself as black for years but the reality was both her parents were white and so was she.  Rachel had constructed a public persona of a black woman, and it was believable.  She had photos of a black man she said was her dad, had two black children, and had worked tirelessly as an activist and president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP.  When the reporter outed her as white, her world came crumbling down.  Her friends felt betrayed, she lost her job, her volunteer positions, most of her family, her place in the community, her reputation - she lost everything.

Did she deserve it?  Was she a fraud?  Did she have a valid reason to claim membership to another racialized group? Is race biological or is it a social construct, made up by people?  Is race something that doesn't exist in nature and more importantly, does her refusal to apologize mean that she doesn't understand the issue - or that we don't?

We talk through the history of racism, the biological and social realities of "race", and consider the parallels between race and gender in this extra special edition of Apologies Accepted.