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.