Oh, Paris. You are known as the City of Light, for your illumination of the world with your art and ideas during the Age of Enlightenment. Or maybe that is for your early use of street lamps.
What am I, Wikipedia? In any case, your namesake, Paris Hilton, does not display any such shimmering brightness, whether Spinoza-esque or electrical-activity-based.
Ms. Hilton recently was recently recorded saying, “Gay guys are the horniest people in the world. They’re disgusting. Dude, most of them probably have AIDS…I would be so scared if I was a gay guy. You’ll like, die of AIDS.”
As Rich Juzwiak of Gawker points out, Ms. Hilton’s challenges with the subjunctive are nearly as great as her bigotry. But what to do maintenant? If only Ms. Hilton could pay someone to invent a time machine so she could go back to not say the words she said, back far enough even to learn tolerance as well as grammar. But this would probably cause some sort of rift in the space-time continuum (I watch TV) and cause Germany to win World War II, so maybe the best response would have been to say, “I’m sorry. I said really hateful, homophobic things. I have no excuse. Gay people must cope with the stereotypes I espoused and the insensitivity I showed every day of their lives, and attitudes like mine keep them from having full rights as citizens and human beings. I can’t apologize enough for contributing to a climate of hatred. I am going to make a giant donation to The Trevor Project and focus on learning about what disgustingness really is, as well as finding a good deep conditioner.”
Unfortunately, Ms. Hilton’s representation only made matters worse with an abysmal statement of clarification to Radar:
Paris Hilton’s comments were to express that it is dangerous for anyone to have unprotected sex that could lead to a life threatening disease. The conversation became heated, after a close gay friend told her in a cab ride, a story about a gay man who has AIDS and is knowingly having unprotected sex. He also discussed a website that encourages random sex by gay men with strangers. As she was being shown the website her comments were in reference to those people promoting themselves on the site. The cab driver who recorded this, only provided a portion of the conversation. It was not her intent to make any derogatory comments about all gays. Paris Hilton is a huge supporter of the gay community and would never purposefully make any negative statements about anyone’s sexual orientation.
To quote Seth and Amy: Really. Don’t even TRY. Let’s count the ways this is not an apology. 1. Some of my best friends are gay! 2. People with AIDS sometimes deserve it, if it’s sexually transmitted! 3. People who are whores in front of a camera should receive opprobrium! (Again. Really. HAVE A MIRROR MUCH?) 4. The meen cabby didn’t tell Paris she was being recorded! 5. The terms “disgusting” and “I’d be so scared if I was a gay guy; you’ll, like, die of AIDS” were totes taken out of context! (Because there exists some context in which those words are AWESOME!)
This was yesterday afternoon. At 11:15pm last nite, Ms. Hilton’s people tried again. This apology was posted on glaad‘s site.
As anyone close to me knows, I always have been and always will be a huge supporter of the gay community. I am so sorry and so upset that I caused pain to my gay friends, fans and their families with the comments heard this morning. I was having this private conversation with a friend of mine who is gay and our conversation was in no way towards the entire gay community. It is the last thing that I would ever want to do and I cannot put into words how much I wish I could take back every word.
HIV/AIDS can hurt anyone, gay and straight, men and women. It’s something I take very seriously and should not have been thrown around in conversation.
Gay people are the strongest and most inspiring people I know. It is so wrong when people bully or put down others for being gay. No one should have to go through that. Again, I am so sorry from the bottom of my heart and I feel absolutely horrible. I hope that everyone can accept my apology and know that it is not who I am or how I feel in any way.
Thank you for taking a minute to read this, I love you.
Well, let’s hope glaad got a nice chunk of change out of this. You certainly feel the advocacy group’s influence in the second graf. But someone should have proofed Ms. Hilton’s authentic-feeling second-to-last graf. Saying “it is not who I am or how I feel in any way”? Mistake. You said it. It is who you are and how you feel. Your job now is to analyze why that is, so you’ll actually learn how not to be that person. (Also, the word “private” should not be in the first paragraph. Just because no one was supposed to hear your homophobia doesn’t make it less homophobic. And you still have the “I have gay friends so I can’t be homophobic” thing going on. Look into that. And the word “entire” needs to go — again, the despicable sentiments you expressed only apply to part of the gay community? Not nice. This is precisely the bullying behavior you decry. You gotta own the sin if you’re gonna own the apology. Only this will lead to true enlightenment, ma petite.)
Yeah, starting out with the I AM A GOOD PERSON! A HUGE SUPPORTER! thing doesn’t work.
Maybe if she had a chance to get out more and see more of the world — no, not so far.
Years ago a friend of mine told me something I said hurt her feelings. Here’s the context: My friend–I’ll call her Yasmina–had purchased another friend’s car when that friend bought a new one. Some years before, that same friend sold Yasmina his car when he bought a new one. So Yasmina had bought two used cars from the same friend, and on both occasions the friend sold it to her at a very good price. When Yasmina told me she had bought her friend’s used car the second time, I said, “you’re lucky to have a friend who will sell you his car at a good price.” She told me that hurt her feelings (never mind that she waited 5 years to tell me this; apparently it infuriated her so much she was too angry to confront me) because she thought I was inferring that she was a “charity case.” I was shocked to hear this, because nothing could have been further from the truth. I meant exactly what I said, that she was lucky to have a friend from whom she could buy a car at a good price, as well as trust that the car was in good condition because she knows this person takes good care of his car. I bought a used car from a friend who gave me a good price as well as all the service records for the car, and I felt lucky that I knew exactly what I was getting, plus lucky that I didn’t have to look high and low for a good used car.
Unfortunately Yasmina was not very articulate about explaining why my comment made her feel bad. She didn’t actually use the words “charity case” (someone else used those words when I told the story to him), but she said, “you would not be living the lifestyle you live if you weren’t married to someone who already owns a house and earns a good living.” (Yasmina is single, by the way.) She is absolutely right, and for that I feel very lucky indeed. I don’t feel like a “charity case.” But, she used my situation to illustrate how she felt. Apparently my comment made her defensive, as though she had to justify buying a used car rather than a new one, or that she has to rely on friends to provide her with items that are expensive by giving her a “deal.”
anyhow, I did apologize profusely for having hurt her feelings. I didn’t apologize for making the comment, because I did not then and still do not feel that the comment itself was hurtful. What was hurtful was Yasmina’s interpretation of the comment. At the time, I was careful not to try and defend myself too vigorously, because I know that trying to justify your motives for doing something that hurts someone else is not a good apology, as in the Paris Hilton example. and yet, here I am, years after this exchange took place, still feeling resentful that I didn’t have an opportunity to defend my intentions, which were good.
So my question is, what do you do when you say or do something that is interpreted by another person as hurtful, when you didn’t mean it that way? It’s obvious that you must try to understand where the hurt person is coming from, and have empathy for them even if you didn’t mean what you said or did in the way they interpreted it, and apologize for having said/done something that caused the hurt person pain. But is that it? Don’t you get to set the record straight and explain your motivations so the person will understand that you were not trying hurt them, or even think of them in a hurtful way?
Yes, you get to set the record straight. That’s usually better for everyone — if it really gets straight.
You hurt Yasmina’s feelings when she thought you were calling her a charity case – someone whose pitiful state makes other people do her favors. And she hurt your feelings by saying you thought and (more or less) said that she was a charity case.
But which view would Yasmina prefer: that you called her a charity case and now you’re sorry, or that you didn’t call her a charity case, but you expressed yourself badly – and you’re sorry for that? Clarity is good.
You’re right that trying to justify yourself can go wrong. So you have to be careful. If you insist that no one else would have interpreted your remarks the way she did (and so the fault is hers), that’s not going to help.
“You’re lucky to have a friend who will sell you his car at a good price.” The car-seller is Yasmina’s friend, but I’m guessing that’s not why he sells his old cars at a fair price. I guess he just thinks it’s the right thing to do. Yasmina’s lucky to be his friend because he’s a good person, even if she never buys a car from him. Just like you’re lucky Yasmina is your friend (for reasons you know).
I know there’ve been times when someone thought I said something horrible, when it had never crossed my mind. (Luckily for my self-esteem, no examples come to mind.)
Sometimes when we’re trying to defend ourselves, our innocence gets in the way. We’re so vehement about our good heart that we don’t pay enough attention to the misunderstanding. “I didn’t say that! I would never say that! How can you think I would say that?!” Righteousness can make us insensitive.
Paris Hilton is hollering “I love gay people! Hugely! I support gay people! Hugely! How can you think otherwise just because I said they’re disgusting and disease-riddled?!” She should stop focusing on Paris the enormous gay-friend, and focus on Paris who actually said those things. It doesn’t really look like a case of poor word choice. (“When I said ‘disgusting’ I meant ‘delightful’ and when I said ‘most of them probably have AIDS’ I meant ‘most of them probably have three times my IQ.’”)
You didn’t say anything like that, but you’d probably both be happier if you got it straightened out.