Deen and Hernandez in Court

There sure is a lot in the news today that could lead to days and days of blogging topics. For now, I’m just going to offer a brief comment to two of the top stories of the day. I may or may not elaborate on either of the stories, depending on what else is revealed in the news in the days to come.

1. Paula Deen – Apparently, Food Network and at least two other corporations associated with Paula Deen are severing their ties with her after she admitted in a deposition to using the N-word over 30 years ago. Yes, there is an ongoing lawsuit against Deen that claims she acted in a racist manner, but apparently the only reason these corporations let Deen go was this admission, at least based on the various stories I’ve read about the non-renewal of her contract. First, in regard to the lawsuit, who knows? Not us. The only ones who know whether the allegations in the lawsuit are true are the parties involved, and from what I’ve read so far, Deen has not acknowledged or admitted that any of those allegations are true. That will play out through the civil court circuit, and eventually there will be a ruling. I’m not going to speculate about the truth of the plaintiff’s claims. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know. Second, yes, in Deen’s admission, she says that she used the word one time and it was 30 years ago. She apologized for it. Is she sincere? Again, I don’t know her personally, so I can’t say. However, with Food Network and these other corporations severing their ties with her, the message is clear. You cannot be forgiven for what has occurred in your past. If that’s the sole reason for distancing themselves from Deen, all I can say for everybody else out there is that you’d sure better watch what you say, and don’t get angry and say anything in the heat of the moment that you may have to admit to 30 years down the road. The circumstances of your offense obviously will not matter, and your apologies will be fruitless. In this particular instance, these corporations are overreacting. At this point, there’s not really a justifiable reason to sever ties with Deen. Now, if she loses the lawsuit against her and it is proven that she not only has but continues to behave in a racist manner toward her employees, then that would be the time to determine Deen’s future within the companies involved.

2. Aaron Hernandez – The NFL player has been a focal point of a murder investigation for the past nine days. This morning, he was arrested, and at his arraignment this afternoon, the DA revealed that the charge against Hernandez is murder. Within a couple hours of his arrest, the New England Patriots released Hernandez from their organization. It may seem contradictory to my thoughts about Deen, but in this instance the Patriots were right to release Hernandez from the team. First, there is a major difference in the charges against these folks. Hernandez has been charged with murder. He’s accused of taking a life, not of making derogatory comments. Second, since Hernandez will face a trial, he obviously won’t be able to fully function in the team’s activities as they prepare for the upcoming season. The Patriots are an organization that historically has shown they don’t tolerate distractions, and a murder charge is a major distraction. Third, since Hernandez was released so quickly after his arrest, it stands to reason that there is something in his contract that allows such a dismissal. Hernandez should know what is in his contract, and if he has nothing to do with this murder, you would think he would have spent the last few days trying to prove his lack of involvement, not only to save himself from a murder charge but also to save his job.

While it may seem that I’m employing a double standard here, I’m not. For one thing, we’re dealing with a civil suit and a criminal charge, which immediately separates the seriousness of the charges. In one instance, the dismissal is related to an incident that occurred over 30 years ago and did not involve a crime of any sort, at least based on what has been revealed so far. Contrary to what many may think, it is not a crime to call someone a name, regardless of how offensive that name might be. I’m not saying Deen was right to call anybody such a name, just that so far, that’s the only proven allegation against her. In addition to not being related to a crime Deen committed, it shows that saying one atrocious thing can come back to haunt you and affect your life many years into the future. Based on what I’ve read, Deen has been cooperative in the lawsuit against her. Hernandez’s dismissal, on the other hand, is directly related to a recent incident that involves another individual losing his life. Reports indicate that Hernandez hasn’t been completely cooperative and may have even tampered with evidence. The bottom line, though, is that Deen could have continued cooking and doing television shows while her case makes its way through the system, and Hernandez would not have been able to continue contributing to his NFL team while his case makes its way through the system.

The thing is for both Deen and Hernandez this is a major blow to their careers. I’m not going to label Deen a racist or Hernandez a murderer based on what I’ve read so far. In Deen’s case, we all need to keep in mind that at any time, if we make someone mad enough, they can falsely accuse us of a variety of behaviors and create all sorts of havoc for us, regardless of the amount of truth in the allegations. Once a charge has been leveled, regardless of the concept of “innocent until proven guilty,” we actually have to become pro-active and had better be ready to prove our innocence. And once a charge has been leveled, there are those who will not look at the evidence, will not consider what we have to say, and will simply believe the charge. Given that, in the minds of many, Deen is a racist and Hernandez is a murderer. In Hernandez’s case, the evidence shared so far does look incriminating. However, in both these cases, we need to be cautious about applying labels and passing judgment. We can follow developments through the news, and as evidence is presented, then we can draw our own conclusions.

Say You’re Sorry Like You Mean It

I saw a news article today where a judge ordered two people to apologize to a family for having made critical comments about the family. The family has also been ordered to accept the apologies. Of course, there is a whole lot more to this situation, but frankly the details here are not important. What is important is two people were court ordered to issue an apology, and a family was court ordered to accept; this order is completely worthless.

We are taught there are times when apologies are appropriate. We apologize when we do something that hurts others because we are truly sorry that we’ve hurt them. We offer apologies when bad things have happened to those we care about, even if it’s not our fault and there’s nothing we can do about it, because we hate that those we care about are going through a difficult situation. Often when we were youngsters, we apologized because our parents told us to.

Of all those apologies, the ones we gave because we wanted to and because we were sincere are the ones that meant something. The ones we gave because our parents made us were mostly worthless at the time because we didn’t mean it. We did it only because we were told to. They meant something as we grew older because we learned the situations where we should feel remorse and when we should be apologetic.

We were children at the time, and we learned from our mistakes. Adults, too, can learn from their mistakes. However, ordering an adult to apologize is worthless. Likewise, ordering an adult to accept an apology is worthless. It’s doubtful those apologizing will actually be sincere; after all, they’ve been ordered to do it. It’s also doubtful that those accepting will be sincere as they, too, have been ordered to do so.

When we are adults, apologies only mean something if we mean the apology. If we don’t mean it, the situation remains unresolved. The person we’re apologizing to can tell if we’re sincere or not. Even if we do a pretty good job of faking it, we know we weren’t sincere. The judge could have found the two in contempt. After that, he could have issued a short-term jail sentence or a fine. The jail term probably would have been going overboard, but a fine would not have been out of line, and would make more sense than forcing adults to issue a meaningless apology and forcing others to accept that meaningless apology.

Forcing an apology and forcing an acceptance will not resolve the issue between these folks. In fact, it could do more harm than good; it’s more likely that both of them will simply hold a grudge, and there’s little to guarantee a change in behavior. Unlike children who are still being molded and can learn appropriate patterns of behaviors, few adults will change their minds or their behaviors simply because they’re ordered to apologize or to accept the apology.

Apologies only mean something when the one apologizing is sincere. If you’re going to apologize but you aren’t going to be sincere, don’t bother. Worthless apologies only add to problems; they don’t solve them.