There’s a haunting account in the psychoanalytic literature of a child who asked for apologies. A 1955 Psychoanalytic Study of the Child article tells of a four-and-a-half-year-old admitted to the New York Neurological Institute. Gaunt and pale, a few weeks earlier she had stopped eating and speaking. She refused to be in bed, huddling in a corner with her face to the wall. “[S]oon she began to wet and soil as she lay mute and unresponsive.”

At the Institute her behavior was similar. Sometimes she muttered or hummed rhythmically.

A few days after admission, she was the subject of a case conference attended by many staff. She was rolled into the room in a crib. She sat staring. She made no response when the examiner put an arm around her or asked her name. After a few minutes, she began muttering. The examiner asked a nurse if she had ever been able to make out any words. The nurse said she’d once thought the child was chanting, “Say you’re sorry.”

Child’s hospital cot, Great Ormand Street & Bristol.

When she said this, the child looked at the nurse, then stared at the examiner. He took her hand, and seriously said, “I am sorry. I am very very sorry.” The child looked at the staff member standing next to him and spoke. Clearly. “Say you’re sorry.”

“I am sorry, too,” he said. She turned to each doctor in the front row and said, “Say you’re sorry.” Each one did. She started asking them their names, told them hers, and happily accepted a piece of candy.

She improved rapidly, and went home.

She was brought to the Institute for weekly therapy sessions. Her initial reaction was “excellent; but she then went successively through a long series of reactivated earlier phobias about contacts and smells, with related compulsive avoidance rituals.” Her mother was also pressured to come for weekly therapy.

The article says that the child’s “crisis” had come after a day when her father, tired and annoyed, lost his temper and spanked her.

The article “does not pretend to tap deep layers of analytical data or insights.” The saying sorry is referred to as a “verbal symbol” from an “unconscious constellation,” whose effect was “instantaneous and almost magical.” They describe the incident as a “demonstration of the appearance and disappearance of a psychotic state in childhood out of a neglected pre-existing neurosis. …that this malignant process was caught in time to be reversible was the happy outcome of a moment of exceptional clinical good fortune…”

Well, then.

New York Neurological Institute. Pretty sure this is the place.

Ten years later, a follow-up article in the American Journal of Psychotherapy, by different authors, offered more explanation. Six years on, the child was hospitalized again. She was violent, set fires, insisted she be called a boy’s name, said she might cut herself, eavesdropped on phone calls, and generally appalled and frightened the family.

After months of therapy, it was at last learned that when the child was very small, shortly after she began to walk, her parents decided the child was too constipated. They didn’t consult a doctor, but began giving her enemas every few days, which the child fought savagely. It took both parents to overpower her. This went on for three years – which seems to take us up to the time the child was first locked up after her “psychotic” crisis. Somehow, the parents never mentioned it to clinicians when asked about toilet training.

The second hospitalization seems to have been set off by an incident when the child’s day camp was scheduled to have a sleepover. Half an hour after arrival, the kid became hysterical and uncontrollable and had to be taken away. Much later, it turned out she’d spotted an enema bag in a counselor’s suitcase.

When the therapists finally learned about what they termed “the battle of the enemas,” they initiated sessions with child and mother and then the whole family over a month’s time. “The patient was allowed to introduce the topic of the enemas at her own time, and did so….” By the end of the month “all of the intense feelings surrounding it had disappeared.”

The authors of the second article go more directly to the subject of the apologies demanded. “Being ‘sorry’ can… be understood to have multiple meanings.” They say she felt sorry for her own behavior. “Moreover, she demanded that her parents should be sorry for deceiving her, surprising her, bribing her, and repeatedly invading the privacy of her body. By extension, she was unable to trust anyone…”

That was a hell of a way to treat a tiny kid. Today it’s called abusive. The articles aren’t fun reading, and the psychoanalytic interpretations might also be… dated. But the opening scene of the story touches the heart. The angry, despairing child was freed from self-destructive misery by a room full of strangers apologizing to her. There is a fleeting magic there.

Some smarty-pants psychologists were hanging out in a Berlin restaurant in the 1920s. They were at the forefront of a new field, and we picture them trying to fit everything they saw into their Big New Vision. Psychic fields! Gestalt theory! Psychological tensions! The experimental method!

Needing coffee and cake to fuel their intellectual rapture, they kept an eye on the waiters. The Zeigarnik Effect was discovered when they noticed what those waiters remembered. The waiters had perfect memories for every single sip and crumb – until the bill was paid. Then, amnesia. If there were two big tables of customers, the waiters knew exactly what had been ordered at the table where the bill hadn’t been paid yet. But they didn’t remember the orders from the table where the bill had been paid.

Why should they? Old news. But it was interesting how total the forgetting was – how did that happen?

Cafe Heinrichhof, Vienna, 1912. Moriz Jung.

One of the psychologists was the young Bluma Zeigarnik, who did her dissertation on the effect the waiters displayed. No, she did not do her dissertation by hanging out in coffee houses. (Nice idea, though – are you a grad student by any chance?)

Zeigarnik gave experimental subjects various tasks like puzzles, math problems, or stringing beads. Some subjects were interrupted in the middle of what they were doing. An hour later she asked people what their task had been. Those who had been interrupted were twice as likely to remember the task as those who were allowed to finish the thing.

She formulated her findings as “Unfinished tasks are remembered approximately twice as well as completed ones.” (Actually, she wrote “Die unerledigten Handlungen werden besser, und zwar durchschnittlich nahezu doppelt so gut behalten wie die erledigten.”)

(Zeigarnik’s biography is tumultuous and tragic. In hindsight, the Zeigarniks’ move to Moscow may have been ill-advised.)

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute Saloon, when they suddenly noticed an odd phenomenon.

While the Zeigarnik Effect is well-known, and often referenced, experimenters sometimes cannot replicate the effect. We suspect this may be because they’re giving people tasks that are just too boring to care about finishing. (Ooh – why not open a fake cafe?)

Here’s how SorryWatch sees the Zeigarnik Effect relating to apologies. If you messed up somehow, and it still weighs on you, or bugs you when you wake up at four a.m., it might be because that mess is unfinished. Still hanging there. An apology can turn that regrettable episode into a finished one, and let you stop wincing at the memory.

It might even stop being a memory. Sumac knows this from past events she wanted to write about for SorryWatch, but can no longer remember well enough. Once she said a stupid thing, meant as a joke (uh huh). It kept bothering her until she invited Nicole to lunch and apologized. It stopped bothering her so completely that now she can’t remember the stupid thing she said. Damn it! That would’ve been perfect for SorryWatch. Probably.

On the one hand, thank you, Doctor Zeigarnik! One less thing to regret during sleepless nights. On the other hand, Bluma – can I please get my memory back?

Being waitstaff: harder than people often realize.

On another occasion, Sumac offended a family member, who continued to resent her insensitivity. Sumac finally realized that she was at fault. She apologized and had her apology accepted. Much later, it occurred to Sumac to write it up for SorryWatch, but she couldn’t remember what she’d done. She asked the family member, and they didn’t remember either.

That’s kind of amazing – a grudge that was forgotten! Eventually, an outside source reminded Sumac of what she’d done, and she was able to write it up.

Maybe we all see this in our lives. We can’t promise you a clear conscience in all domains, but sometimes an apology or two can help with insomnia.

On May 30^th, Iowa senator Joni Ernst held a Town Hall in Butler County. These are usually said to be to listen to the concerns of constituents.

When someone called out “People are going to die!” Ernst replied “Well, we are all going to die.” The audience groaned, and she admonished them, “For Heaven’s sakes, folks.”

Here’s some context. Many of the citizens present were alarmed about the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” barely passed by the House and now before the Senate. The bill is indeed big, and contains many horrible things. Medicaid cuts in it will affect millions of people. Ernst defended the bill and argued that people who would lose Medicaid were illegal immigrants. She didn’t say that all of them were. Good, because that’s not true. One in 5 Iowans get Medicaid.

Along with the bill’s proposed defunding of Planned Parenthood, one particular effect would be no coverage for prenatal care, childbirth, and postnatal care. Oh, and the closing of rural hospitals.

So yes, cuts anything like the ones proposed will result in many deaths. Rural people, poor people, old people, baby people, and more.

You want medical care? Seriously? Photo: Gage Skidmore.

When Ernst’s “We are all going to die” remark went public, there was a lot of anger about it. Enough that she apparently felt she should apologize. Or was advised to apologize.

As we often say, a bad apology can make things worse. This was one of those cases.

She filmed it in a graveyard.

Hello, everyone.

I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my Town Hall.

See, I was in the process of answering a question that had been asked by an audience member when

a woman who was extremely distraught screamed out from the back corner of the auditorium, “People are going to die!”

And I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this earth.

So, I apologize.

And I’m really really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the Tooth Fairy as well. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

She forgot to say that in hell, they want ice water.

Terrible apology! Yes, she uses the word “apologize.” It was not sincere, but still, she said it. And she said what the action was that she was apologizing for. But then she went off the rails in the part about acknowledging the impact.

There’s a passing attack on the audience member (“extremely distraught” “screamed”). Then a sneering attack on everyone present who shared that concern, in which she pretends they don’t know that people die. (“I made an incorrect assumption”) This of course ignores the obvious fact that a responsible government works to ensure that people don’t die sooner than they must, and don’t die in untreated physical misery.

To add insult she implies that anyone concerned not only doesn’t know about death but also believes in the Tooth Fairy.

Have you heard the great news about the Tooth Fairy? Photo by Gage Skidmore at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Strangely, she then tries to manifest lovingkindness by advising listeners to find Jesus. This is one of the weirder evangelical gestures we’ve seen. “Hey stupid, find Christ!”

She’s not sorry, she doesn’t think she was wrong, she thinks her constituents are dumb (not because they don’t know about death, but because they think she’s wrong not to care about others), and she’s only pretending to do religious outreach.

This is called doubling down. It’s not a persuasive technique, but it may amuse her handlers in the administration.

Adults know all of us will die eventually. But that doesn’t mean we don’t care how soon we die. It doesn’t mean we don’t want medical care. Maybe even in a hospital. We also care about the health of our family and friends.

“We are all going to die” is not about Ernst accepting her own mortality. It’s about her lack of interest in other people’s mortality. A bad look in a public servant.

Hard-fought tennis game at the Open de Rouen. French player Loïs Boisson dominating. British player Harriet Dart struggling. As they changed ends, Dart spoke to the umpire. “Can you tell her to use deodorant because she smells really bad?”

This was picked up by a microphone so lots of people got to hear it, though probably not Boisson, who continued to trounce Dart. 6-0, 6-3. Game over.

Later, Dart posted on Instagram, “Hey everyone, I want to apologise for what I said on court today, it was a heat-of-the-moment comment that I truly regret. That’s not how I want to carry myself, and I take full responsibility. I have a lot of respect for Lois and how she competed today. I’ll learn from this and move forward.”

Harriet Dart, Transylvania Open, 2024. (c) Nuta Lucian

Good or bad apology?

It’s probably true that it was heat-of-the-moment stupidity, rather than some kind of diabolical middle-school strategy. Umpires don’t pass messages between players. Opposing tennis players aren’t in sniffing range of each other.

But if Dart genuinely wants to take responsibility, she should apologize directly to Boisson, and not only to the public “everyone” who heard this silliness. And then, as she said, learn from this. And only then, “move forward.”

Boisson did hear about it, after all, and posted a photo of herself into which a container of deodorant had been Photoshopped, captioned “@dove apparently need a collab”

Amusing, and de-escalating. Well played.

Another deodorant brand hopped into the conversation, saying their product is better than Dove’s.

Battle of the brands? That’s where things could get underhanded.

Hat tip to our Tennis Correspondent, Wendy G.

The NYPD sent news organizations a statement of correction and apology. They don’t seem to have put it on their website. The most complete version we could find appeared in the New York CaribNews.

In reference to a fatal shooting at the 2024 West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn, it says:

The N.Y.P.D. identified a person of interest who was on the scene before, during and after the incident, which is supported by video evidence and witness accounts.

Social media posts in September mistakenly stated that he was wanted for the fatal shooting.

The N.Y.P.D. should have immediately corrected this misstatement.

We apologize for the error and will continue to seek justice for the victims of this shooting.

That statement was sent out on February 9, 2025. The shooting, which killed one person and injured four others, happened on September 2, 2024, so this apology comes 5 months afterward.

Oh, is that because they were still investigating that person of interest as the possible shooter? Well, no.

A “person of interest” might be a suspect, or they might be a witness. You, for example, or SorryWatch, if we happened to be at a marvelous parade looking around for some fritters, doubles, or jerk chicken.

Dancing. 2010 Parade.

This “person of interest” was 16-year-old Camden Lee, who did not shoot anybody. He went to the parade after football practice. One of the friends he was standing with was shot in the shoulder. But the NYPD put a “crisp” photo of Lee on social media saying he had fired a gun and was “wanted for the fatal shooting.”

When Lee saw the photo with its false accusation, he was shocked. He told the Associated Press, “I see the NYPD logo. I see me. I see ‘suspect wanted for murder. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Then everything went blurry.”

Lee and his mother got a lawyer and they met with the police. They had to wait until the following week for the meeting. The police agreed that he was not a suspect. “They conceded they got it wrong,” said attorney Kenneth Montgomery. NOT A SUSPECT. NOT. NOT WANTED FOR THE SHOOTING. INNOCENT. During the time the family were waiting to meet with the police, the WANTED image was going out to TV and other media outlets.

The NYPD took the WANTED picture down from their Instagram and X accounts, but did not go so far as to say that Lee was not a suspect.

And after the photo with the accusation was taken down, amateur sleuths kept reposting it.

Crisp.

And then, according to a CBS interview with Lee’s mother, the NYPD “mistakenly” reposted it in December.

Lee’s mother was frightened for his life. Friends of the person who was killed, or one of the ones who was injured, might come after Lee. Death threats were coming in. Death threats were coming in because of police actions. And the police said they suspected gang involvement. The family left town for several weeks, meaning Lee missed school.

Finally, after 5 months, they issued that terrible apology. Which shows why explanation is sometimes an important part of a good apology.

Marching band, 2008 Brooklyn West-Indian American Carnival.

What happened? Why did the NYPD leave the picture up for so long? Why did it take them 5 months to admit Lee wasn’t really a suspect? Why didn’t they “immediately [correct] this misstatement”?

We can imagine a lot of reasons. Maybe they hoped that Lee and a bunch of football pals would decide to clear his name and find the real killer for them. Unlikely – are we in the movies? Maybe they hoped someone would kill him to avenge the person who was shot, Denzel Chan, and then they could say “Must’ve been him after all, we were right all along.” That could be a little more likely. Maybe they had no interest in doing right by citizens who happen to be of West Indian descent. Also possible. Maybe the job of fixing the information fell between the cracks – everyone thought it was someone else’s job. Maybe it isn’t anyone’s job, because the NYPD isn’t really focused on correcting misinformation. Or maybe the person whose job it was left, and the position hasn’t been filled. Or, you know how they say not to ascribe anything to malice that can as easily be ascribed to incompetence? Maybe nobody knew how to do it and nobody cared enough to learn

Whatever it was, it should be fixed. But the fixes for these different possibilities are all different, and if we don’t know how it happened, we don’t know what fix to demand.

Happens? Happens to be wrong.

On the eve of April Fool’s Day in 1848, two sisters in Hydesville, NY, began screaming for their mother. Margaretta, known as Maggie, was 14; Catherine, called Kate, was 11. Something in their bedroom was making thumping sounds, apparently attempting to communicate with them.

The girls asked the Something to copy them as they snapped her fingers; it did. They asked it if it knew their ages; it rapped 14 times, then 11 times. The neighbors were called in to witness; everyone was agog. Arthur Conan Doyle, who discussed the sisters’ experiences in his 1926 book, The History of Spiritualism, wrote, “Over the course of the next few days a code was developed where raps could signify yes or no in response to a question or be used to indicate a letter of the alphabet.”

The otherworldly communications quickly took an unnerving turn. Harry Houdini, who told the girls’ story in his 1924 book A Magician Among the Spirits, wrote, “Some one [sic] asked the girls if a murder had ever been committed in the house. The ominous sounds of the code answered in the affirmative.” Conan Doyle reported that the girls called the spirit “Mr. Splitfoot,” a nickname for the devil.

The family abandoned the house. (Who wouldn’t.) The girls’ much older, married sister, Leah — she was 23 when Maggie was born — took Maggie and Kate to live with her in Rochester, NY. There, the young sisters amazed the neighbors by communicating with their dead children. Leah became Maggie and Kate’s manager; she was soon collecting a dollar a head (around $40 today) from people who wanted to see Maggie and Kate talk to spirits. The girls drew ever-greater crowds. In November 1849, they sold out the biggest venue in Rochester, Corinthian Hall, and demonstrated their powers for nearly 400 people. Some thought they were fakers (Scientific American magazine called them “Spiritual Knockers from Rochester”) but many were convinced. Leah took them on a national tour, keeping them to a rigorous schedule of daily private spiritualist readings and public performances.

The sisters were an early inspiration for Spiritualism — a faith characterized by the belief in communication with departed souls. Spiritualism gained adherents throughout the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, largely in English-speaking countries. Many families lost loved ones in the Civil War, World War I, and the great flu epidemic of 1918. Almost every household at the time was touched by death in some way. Spiritualism gave grieving people hope. At the same time, the development of and advancements in photography meant that people began seeing (apparently) documentary images of ghosts and strange ectoplasm — the supposed physical manifestation of a dead person’s energy. This too helped people believe that their loved ones could reach out to them from the beyond … with a little help from certain gifted souls, who often happened to be attractive young women. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who lost a son in the flu epidemic and whose wife believed she could communicate with the dead, became increasingly passionate about Spiritualism; Harry Houdini cynically pretended to be a medium early in his career but became increasingly determined to debunk Spiritualist trickery. Their differences wound up destroying their long friendship.

Over the years, some mediums recanted and apologized for bilking rubes. Among them were Maggie and Kate Fox. Sort of.

By 1888, the sisters were exhausted. Maggie had been widowed; she and Kate both struggled with alcohol and poverty. They’d had a falling-out with Leah, who had accused Kate of being a bad mother because of her drinking.

In September of that year, Maggie decided to confess her deceptions to The New York World. She was paid $1500, the equivalent of around $51,300 today.

As recounted by Harry Houdini in his book debunking Spiritualism, Maggie acknowledged her and Katie’s actions … but blamed Leah completely. “Katie and I were led around like lambs,” she wrote. “The rooms were jammed from morning till night and we were called upon by those old wretches … when we should have been out at play in the fresh air.” She noted that Leah got rich while she and her little sister did not. “We had crowds coming to see us and she made as much as a hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars a night. She pocketed this.”

Lithograph depicting Miss Margaretta Fox, Miss Catherine Fox, and Mrs. Fish, Currier & Ives, 1852

Maggie went on:

I loathe the thing I have been. I used to say to those who wanted me to give a séance, ‘You are driving me into Hell.’ Then the next day I would drown my remorse in wine. I was too honest to remain a ‘medium.’ That’s why I gave up my exhibitions. I have seen so much miserable deception! Every morning of my life I have it before me. When I wake up I brood over it. That is why I am willing to state that Spiritualism is a fraud of the worst description. I have had a life of sorrow, I have been poor and ill, but I consider it my duty, a sacred thing, a holy mission to expose it. I want to see the day when it is entirely done away with. After my sister Katie and I expose it I hope Spiritualism will be given a death blow.

This isn’t an apology. Maggie takes no responsibility; everything is Leah’s fault. She doesn’t acknowledge that she perpetrated harm. She focuses on her own suffering and her bravery in coming clean (very like the way Mark Wahlberg focused on his own heroism in facing his youthful, racist criminal history, which we discuss at length in our book).

Maggie did a little better at a presentation a couple of weeks later, at the New York Hall of Music. There, on October 21, in front of an audience of 2000 people, with Kate in attendance for moral support, Maggie did acknowledge her own wrongdoing.

I have been chiefly instrumental in perpetrating the fraud of Spiritualism upon a too confiding public, most of you doubtless know.

 

The greatest sorrow of my life has been that this is true, and though it has come late in my day, I am now prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—so help me God!

 

There are probably many here who will scorn me for the deception I have practiced, yet did they know the true history of my unhappy past, the living agony and shame that it has been to me, they would pity, not reproach.

 

The imposition which I have so long maintained began in my early childhood, when, with character and mind still unformed, I was unable to distinguish between right and wrong.

 

I repented it in my maturity. I have lived through years of silence, through intimidation, scorn and bitter adversity, concealing as best I might, the consciousness of my guilt. Now, thanks to God and my awakened conscience, I am at last able to reveal the fatal truth, the exact truth of this hideous fraud which has withered so many hearts and has blighted so many hopeful lives.

 

I am here tonight as one of the founders of Spiritualism, to denounce it as an absolute falsehood from beginning to end, as the flimsiest of superstitions, the most wicked blasphemy known to the world.

 

I ask only your kind attention and forgiveness, and as I may prove myself worthy by the step I am now taking, may you extend to me your helping hands and sustain me in the better path I have chosen.

This is better, though still not great. She uses the term fraud, and says she repents for her actions (though “repent” is a lot like “regret”; it isn’t quite “apologize” – it’s still about the speaker rather than about those the speaker harmed). She does acknowledge that she hurt people. But she still focuses more on the wrong done to her and she still asks for “pity, not reproach.” A good apology would have taken ownership of her decisions as an adult and focused still more on those she’d harmed rather than herself.

Giving the people what they wanted, Maggie proceeded to describe and demonstrate how she and her sister had made their unnerving knocking sounds. At first, while living with their parents in Hydesville, the two had tied strings to apples, hid the apples in their beds, and secretly dropped them onto the floor to scare their mother. Over time, they learned to crack their finger and toe joints at will, loudly enough to create rapping noises that seemed to come from spirits. (Houdini had earlier called out their toe-bones trick, to Conan Doyle’s annoyance.)

Some victims of spiritualism were happy to forgive Maggie. Here are two letters the newspapers received:

God bless you, for I think that you now speak the truth. You have my forgiveness at least, and I believe that thousands of others will forgive you, for the atonement made in season wipes out much of the stain of the early sin.

 

If, as you say, you were forced to pursue this imposture from childhood, I can forgive you, and I am sure God will; for he turns not back the truly repentant. I will not upbraid you. I am sure you have suffered as much as any penalty, human or divine, could cause you to suffer.

Forgiveness can be healing for those who opt to forgive. It doesn’t mean any of the other victims were obliged to follow suit, however. (As we like to say, apologies are mandatory; forgiveness isn’t.) We who weren’t wronged aren’t entitled to berate victims for forgiving or for not forgiving. That’s their choice.

A year later, Maggie took back her confession. Her spirit guides had told her to lie, she said! They’d been real all along! Also real was the fact that she had run out of money. She was drinking heavily. But recanting didn’t help her career; she wasn’t welcomed back into the ranks of mediums. (Most of them chose not to forgive, it seems.) Maggie and her big sister Leah never spoke again. Leah died in 1890, at 77, well-off, married to a Wall Street banker. Kate died in 1892, at 55, in a drunken binge. Maggie died – penniless and living on charity in an empty Brooklyn townhouse belonging to a friend — eight months later, at 59.

Like Fox Mulder, many still want to believe. In 1904, newspapers reported the discovery of a human skeleton inside a wall in the basement of the Fox sisters’ childhood home. Had this been the murder victim Mr. Splitfoot had told Maggie and Kate about? YES! said the Boston Journal, in a story on November 23, 1904. The discovery “clears [the Fox sisters] from the only shadow of a doubt held concerning their sincerity in the discovery of spirit communication,” the paper intoned. There was no follow-up story noting that the “skeleton” consisted mainly of chicken bones.

Faith can be unshakeable. In 1926, Conan Doyle wrote that Margaret had always been a true psychic who did not understand her own power, was gaslit by her Catholic husband who scorned Spiritualism and convinced her she was lying about her gifts, and only renounced Spiritualism because of “alcoholic excitement and the frenzy of hatred” she felt for Leah, paired with “the hope of pecuniary reward.” (Conan Doyle felt that mediums should receive salaries, so as not to be tempted by either rich jerks or the fear of poverty. How the salary system would work is unclear.)

Today, many stories about the Fox sisters hint that they may have had legitimate knowledge of the spirit realm after all.

Who can prove otherwise?

Happy Halloween.

In the summer of 2023, a fervent advocate for mistreated dogs got emotional on social media about a case in Fresno that was frustrating her.

In the process of trying to arouse outrage, she made a suggestion which turned out to be false. Wrong. A dangerous lie.

In an online video she suggested that a Thai restaurant next door to the place where a dog was tied up might be killing dogs and serving their meat. “Something needs to be investigated, because yeah now – heartbreaking as it is, it makes more sense that they are eating the meat and selling the meat – it is just – Oh my God, I can’t even…” She posted the address. She asked people to go there and check on the dog. She said the name of the restaurant. (“‘Thai’… I don’t know how to say that word. It’s connected to the house…. I think they’re the same owner.”) The video spread widely.

Wrong. She was completely wrong. The restaurant had nothing to do with the place next door. No one was selling dog meat. No one was eating dogs. No one was killing dogs.

A dog it is okay to eat, if you like cake.

As for the dog whose case had caught her attention, the Fresno police investigated and found the dog was not being abused, and also that it had since been returned to its original owner. They told her to stay away from the location or be charged with harassment. She posted, “I’m not staying away. I am gonna keep going… Something needs to be done, and I guess – breaking the law per se – by [air quotes] harassing, if that’s what they call it, it’s going to get everyone’s attention, so be it. And I think we should all do the same.”

The false accusation had caught the attention of people who were so angry at the idea of dogs being eaten that they threatened people at the restaurant. WHERE DOGS WERE NOT BEING EATEN. NO ONE WAS EATING DOGS. Often they tied the false idea of dog-eating to racist ideas about people from Thailand. They posted vicious fake reviews. Mostly they called or emailed to make threats but sometime they hung around the outside of the restaurant.

The owner, David Rasavong, was especially bothered by an elderly woman caller who screamed at him and then said. “Go back to the country you came from, you dog-eating motherfucker.” Even more, he was afraid for his parents, elderly immigrants who had been helping him in the restaurant.

He replied to all public comments he could find. He posted a video assuring people that the restaurant had nothing to do with the original dog complaint, and OF COURSE WE DON’T SERVE DOG MEAT, but it didn’t help. Because the racist fury continued, he closed the restaurant. Permanently.

More cake.

After a few days, the dog-welfare advocate posted on social media, asking people to leave the restaurant and its owner alone. She posted denying that she was racist. Because while she had mobilized people to harass the restaurant, other people were harassing her for that. They attacked her on social media, reposted her videos, and put up insulting fake profiles of her.

She was invited on local TV. She defended her actions. “I never once reached out to that restaurant and posted anything negative or not even… on Yelp.” The interviewer pointed out that she had posted on Facebook that she believed the restaurant was selling dog meat.

“At the beginning, yes. A lot of people believed that. A lot of people thought that they [the two buildings] were related and that they were connected together. Yes, a lot of people they believe that,” said the dog-welfare advocate. Then she backtracked, and said she never said that. “Now we’re demanding an investigation,” she said. “We’re demanding to make sure that the dogs are okay and it’s falling on deaf ears…” (It’s not clear how the one dog became “dogs.”)

She was upset that people said her remarks were racist, in connecting the idea of a Thai restaurant and the idea that people there might be serving dog meat. “Not once have I mentioned Asians in my videos, not once have I talked about a race…” She was not asked if she would have jumped to the same conclusion about an American-style restaurant.

She did apologize. In a video she said, “The situation got out of hand. I’d like to apologize. This is not the person I am. …It’s been a hard situation to handle…. I am sorry that David [the restaurant owner] and his family are going through this. There’s no justification for the hate that this has spit out. …It was not my intention for it to go this way.”

That’s a terrible apology. She doesn’t say what she did, and she doesn’t take responsibility. She doesn’t take the chance to say IT WASN’T TRUE. THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN. She’s sorry for herself.

On another occasion, she posted, “You accuse me of hate and what are you doing to me? …How hypocritical is that?”

This dog? Also a cake.

It’s a story about how a false racist rumor destroyed a small business. SorryWatch didn’t post about it when it happened. The accuser did not seem to be in good shape. It was too late to go to the restaurant. But recently the incident came to mind again, and we looked at more recent news stories, and found a [happy outcome].

During the dark times after the accusation (which was FALSE, please remember), owner David Rasavong felt isolated. He says even some reporters on the story assumed the accusation was true.

However, most people didn’t fall for the ridiculous story, and many wanted to support the family and their business. A property manager at a shopping center offered to let Rasavong take over a location vacated by another restaurant. A designer, an interior designer, and a painter donated their services. In late fall of 2023 the new restaurant, Love & Thai, opened to great acclaim. People especially praise the crispy pork belly.

We’re posting about this now because of a recent outcropping of vicious accusations that People from Other Places are eating dogs and cats. Accusations that are shutting schools, triggering death threats, and making innocent people live in fear. This is timeless slander to hurl at people in other groups. Not just Haitians, as in this recent calumny. Not just Thais or people from other Asian countries. Not just immigrants, either. Sumac remembers the late comedian Charlie Hill (Oneida Nation of Wisconsin) describing his surprise when he went to public school with White kids who insisted that his family ate dogs.

People with troubled minds sometimes find satisfaction in spreading this rumor – eating pets is horrible! People who eat pets are horrible! Let’s speak out against them! For the sake of the animals, let’s get up a mob!

We’d like to think that such accusations have a short life, that the destruction they cause will end soon. We must hope.

I’m Sorry You Got Mad, written by Kyle Lukoff and illustrated by Julie Kwon

A picture-book apology triumph! The story — told entirely in handwritten notes passed by a little boy, a teacher, and a little girl — is best for kids age 4–8. Could this be the youngest intended audience ever for a fully epistolary novel? Could be!

The first spread shows a seething little boy hurling a piece of paper that says SORRY on it into a trash can. The second spread shows the kid, still steaming, slumped furiously at his classroom desk with his eyes narrowed and his arms crossed, surrounded by an abused, crumbly eraser and a bunch of crumpled pieces of paper. An all-caps note on lined paper hovering above his head reads “SORRY, ZOE. —JACK.”

Now we know the main character’s name is Jack and it sure seems as if he’s being forced to apologize. The book’s artist, Julie Kwon, is amazing at physically depicting RAGE. We see Jack rabidly (and apparently LOUDLY) sharpening a pencil while other kids look on in alarm. And we see Jack following the instructions on the whiteboard to PAINT YOUR FEELINGS, as he furiously Pollocks all over his paper and spatters a fellow student.

 

 

Rage-sharpening.

A kind reader alerted us yesterday to this apology from Royall Elementary School in Florence, South Carolina. School started there this week, and to welcome students back, Royall offered an “Olympic parade,” celebrating the Olympic prowess of different countries. Fun!

Behold, the depiction of Mexico!

A wall. Border patrol agents. And a cantina.

Many parents, unsurprisingly, were dismayed. “It’s disheartening. It’s sad. It’s offensive. It’s inappropriate all the way around,” Florence 1 Schools parent Annette Fling said in a text message to local news outlet The Post and Courier. 

The school removed the post and posted an apology. Here it is:

SorryWatch’s correspondent correctly assessed this statement as “passive-voice mouth noises.”

Let us compare this piece of caca to our Helpful Good-Apology Rubric:

The statement offers “regret,” an emotion that takes no responsibility for the feelings of others; regret only about how the speaker feels. The word “apologize,” which focuses on the feelings of the harmed party, doesn’t appear until the final sentence. And this is key: The statement fails to say precisely what the “regret” is about. A picture that “showed insensitive disregard for the challenges our Hispanic population faces”? What the heck does that mean? What did the picture depict? (It’s gone, so we have no idea.) Was it the handsome 10-year-old gelding H5 Porthos Maestro Wh Z, the Mexican team’s show-jumping horse tragically forced to withdraw from the Olympics for veterinary reasons? (All healing wishes to Porthos.) Was it the fact that so few people watched Mexico win its very first judo medal ever?

Come to think of it, why should a parade purporting to celebrate Mexico depict “challenges our Hispanic population faces”? Why not, um, celebrate Mexico? But PLOT TWIST, the picture actually DID depict the challenges the Hispanic population faces, by illustrating the very racism that has a huge impact on students in school settings, as well as a total lack of appreciation of the complexity and beauty of Mexican culture AND a lack of glorification of Mexican Olympic athleticism! So you go, Royall!

Here’s what a good apology does: Takes responsibility, names the offense, acknowledges WHY the act was hurtful, explains the steps being taken to ensure that the bad thing doesn’t happen again, and makes amends. None of these elements appear in this statement. And now you’ve tried to hide what the images showed, and you don’t describe the images, folks will have no idea what the apology is for.

The region’s School Superintendent, Richard O’Malley, weighed in: “Today this matter has been thoroughly investigated and those who contributed to this event have been held accountable for their decision-making and actions.”

Great. What does “thoroughly investigated” mean? What does “have been held accountable” mean? Were there consequences? Who was interviewed? Whose idea was it to dress as border agents and make a border wall? How do we know this won’t happen again? Is anyone at this school being educated about why Mexican identity isn’t a problem, but rather something to be celebrated? Will the naughty teachers and administrators be denied Chick-Fil-A boxes? (Chick Fil-A catered the staff development day depicted in the photo that is now the most recent picture on Royall’s page, post-Border-Wall-photo deletion.) Will the school continue to delete comments from anyone calling them to account?

Thankfully, a couple of screenshots exist, from before the Big Censoring, showing that the community wasn’t fooled.

They get it.

Today, the superintendent issued another statement, adding, “I wanted to inform you that, due to the serious nature of this incident, several employees are no longer employed by the district or have been placed on leave by the district’s administration.” OK, who was fired? Who was placed on leave? For how long? Paid or unpaid? Again, there’s a lack of transparency that’s unhelpful.

Let’s hope that individual teachers at Royall are able to show their Mexican students, and all Hispanic students, more grace, joy, and understanding than their administration.

We won’t go into the entire remarkable career of Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams Earley with the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), but will look at an incident in 1946, and what followed.

Major Adams, as she was then, was commanding officer of the 6888th Battalion. The battalion was stationed in Birmingham UK, and was charged with getting mail to US troops in the European Theater of Operations (ETO), all seven million of them. More than 7,500 of those troops were named “Robert Smith.” Yeah.

Captain Charity Adams drilling her company at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, May 1943.

There was a huge backlog – 17 million pieces of mail – when the Six Triple Eight arrived in England, and they were given six months to clear it up. It took them only three months, in part because Major Adams had the battalion working in three shifts around the clock. They created their own filing system for the task. “No Mail, Low Morale,” was their motto.

Captain Robert Smith, Bengal Engineers. Yes, I’m Robert Smith, and I’m expecting a letter from home. It might be addressed to “Bobs.”

The Six Triple Eight was composed largely of Black women and this was such a curiosity then that “we were inspected, visited, greeted, checked out, congratulated, called upon, supervised, and reviewed by every officer of any rank in the United Kingdom who could come up with an excuse to come to Birmingham,” Adams wrote in her book One Woman’s Army: A Black Officer Remembers the WAC. “They wanted to see for themselves.”

Actually, I’m Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith. Not Robert Smith. Not even a postcard?

One such officer was a White general whom Adams does not name. Let’s call him General Robert Smith. (As far as we know, he never sang “Boys Don’t Cry.”) He was taken on a tour of the facilities, given lunch, and then presented with all the troops available for inspection – a third of the total number.

“Adams, where are the other personnel of this unit? It certainly does not look like a battalion to me.”

“Yes, Sir, but we work three eight-hour shifts, so some of the women are working.” Another third were sleeping, she explained.

“I wanted to review your troops. That means all of them.”

“But, Sir, our instructions were – ”

“I’ll tell you what I am going to do, Major Adams. I’m going to send a white first lieutenant down here to show you how to run this unit.” This was said in a voice loud enough to be heard by all present.

Adams wrote that it took her a fraction of a second to realize that “I would no longer be able to command if I did not make the proper response to the general.” She replied promptly.

“Over my dead body, Sir.”

“He sputtered and finally said, ‘You’ll hear from me, Adams.’ He saluted to indicate my dismissal from his presence and walked to his limousine. As I watched the general’s limousine slowly disappear from view, it dawned on me that I was in trouble.”

Indeed, that evening Adams and her immediate staff got a call from someone on General Smith’s staff warning that he’d been asked to draw up court-martial charges against Adams.

Any mail for me? I’m Robert Smith. They call me “The Windy City Kid.”

“After much deliberation someone, probably Sergeant Jones, who handled the filing, remembered some letters from SHAEF [Supreme Headquarters American Expeditionary Forces] that cautioned unit commanders about using language that stressed racial segregation so that our allies would not suspect disharmony among American troops…. My own ‘war council’ helped me to decide to put these letters to an unintended use. I would draw up court-martial charges against the general on the grounds that he had disobeyed a directive from SHAEF Headquarters. That was stretching a memorandum into a directive, but I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

After three days, Adams got word that General Smith was dropping his charges on the grounds that because Adams was the highest-ranking WAC officer in the ETO, and the court-martial had to heard by senior officers, it would be too expensive to fly them to Europe for the purpose. Accordingly, Adams dropped her plans to court-martial the general.

Adams, much relieved, thought she’d never have to see Smith again. Not so fast. Soon the Six Triple Eight was sent to France – and General Smith was in their line of command. Within days, Smith came to visit the battalion. “His manner was altogether different on this visit. His main concern was that we keep up the good work we had done in the United Kingdom. He was very pleasant, and you can be assured that I was. It was as if we had never met before that day.”

One day he appeared again. “[H]e showed up unannounced at the 6888th to say good-bye to me. I could not believe what he had to say.

“‘Adams, I’ve received my orders to return to the States. Otherwise, I would not be here. It’s not easy for me to say what I’ve come to say. Working with you has been quite an education for me, especially about Negroes.’ He had finally learned how to pronounce the word. I waited as he continued. ‘The only Negroes I have ever known personally were those who were in the servant capacity or my subordinates in the Army. It’s been a long time since anyone challenged me, black or white, but you took me on. You outsmarted me and I am proud that I know you. I would not have told you this if I thought I would ever see you again.’

“And I never did see him again.”

Was that an apology? Was it a good one?

We say this is an example of an apology that, although it does not follow our steps – or, really, anyone’s steps – to a good apology, still shows serious good intent.

He does NOT say “sorry” or “apologize,” but there’s no doubt that he’s sorry and is going out of his way to let Adams know. He is not specific about what he did, but he is specific about why he thought and acted as he did. He humbles himself by saying he was outsmarted, and shows her respect by saying he’s proud to know her.

The bizarre part is “I would not have told you this if I thought I would ever see you again.” In other words, he doesn’t feel like he can face anyone he’s apologized to. He feels too humiliated.

Okay. One: He was raised wrong. Two: He’d have apologized even better if he read SorryWatch. Three: He was probably wrong about not being able to face anyone he’d apologized to, because most people, like us, would think better of him after that. And his conscience would be clear.