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This is a pretty valid point, and I definitely agree. I think however that there also needs to be a bit more room for people to admit what they said / wrote was, e.g., racist, without everyone immediately seeing them, i.e. their entire personality / character, as racists and completely writing them off. So basically, people need to be able to recognise sometimes that they did something wrong, reflect on that, and try to improve, but others also need to give them some space to do that.
This is of course with respect to people who aren't actually died-in-the-wool through and through racists who have no intention of changing anything and who don't recognise there's anything wrong with it at all - the point is not to give those a free pass.
SwissChap-
And there is often room to do just that. It's more that in this case, and the referenced Danny Baker scenario, they didn't. Calling it "an error of judgement" or explaining why it wasn't racist, is not apologising. It's like when people say "I'm sorry you thought I was being a dick", that's not apologising for being a dick.
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I think however that there also needs to be a bit more room for people to admit what they said / wrote was, e.g., racist, without everyone immediately seeing them, i.e. their entire personality / character, as racists and completely writing them off. So basically, people need to be able to recognise sometimes that they did something wrong, reflect on that, and try to improve, but others also need to give them some space to do that.
This segment of the latest episode of ‘On the Media’ has a great conversation about cancel culture and touches on what people were writing here about Alastair Stewart.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/trouble-cancel-culture
stevo_com
Fyoosh
You can cause harm without meaning to. If I step backwards onto your foot with my massive, sweaty, haven't-cycled-for-5-years bulk, then it doesn't really matter that I didn't intend to crush your dainty little toes into useless floppy pancakes. If you say "fuck me, you've just crushed my toes!" the appropriate response is for me to say "oh shit, sorry, I didn't mean to step on your toes" and then get off your toes.
The wrong thing to do would be for me to continue standing on your toes while explaining to you that I am not, in fact, a toe-crusher, and that toe-crushing never even entered into my head, and people need to be less sensitive about accidental toe-crushing these days because I am definitely not a toe-crusher and you haven't even had your toes crushed anyway.
That would make me look like a dick, and your toes would still hurt.