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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.
stevo_com-
Calling it "an error of judgement" or explaining why it wasn't racist, is not apologising.
Hang on, those are 2 very different things. Saying that you had a lapse of judgement can be part of an apology; essentially, "sorry I made a mistake". Trying to explain why something "isn't racist" is a hiding to nowhere, but saying that there was no racist intent behind something is a perfectly valid thing to say.
It's like when people say "I'm sorry you thought I was being a dick", that's not apologising for being a dick.
Part of the problem here is people not being able to move forward with any kind of discussion unless the other person admits that they were a dick. Loads of people seem to feel that ending a discussion is preferable to doing the harder thing of tolerating the fact that the other person really feels that they haven't done anything wrong and still talking to them.
ffm
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.