Comments on: “This is not who I am” https://sorrywatch.com/this-is-not-who-i-am/ Analyzing apologies in the news, media, history and literature. We condemn the bad and exalt the good. Sun, 28 Feb 2021 13:00:37 +0000 hourly 1 By: The week gone by — Feb. 28 – A Silly Place https://sorrywatch.com/this-is-not-who-i-am/#comment-216029 Sun, 28 Feb 2021 13:00:37 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=5995#comment-216029 […] to be clear, in the same way “I’m sorry to anyone who was offended” or “That’s not who I am” don’t come close to being acceptable apologies, March and the 11 months of Marches it […]

]]> By: Tootsie and Anne Frank (this is a bad post title) https://sorrywatch.com/this-is-not-who-i-am/#comment-215003 Sun, 09 Jun 2019 22:20:37 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=5995#comment-215003 […] I am.” And coincidentally (really!) I just wrote about the offensiveness of the phrase “This is not who I am” for SorryWatch! (So many celebrities have said it; I did not know until I googled yesterday that Hoffman was one […]

]]> By: sumac https://sorrywatch.com/this-is-not-who-i-am/#comment-214984 Mon, 27 May 2019 16:28:39 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=5995#comment-214984 In reply to sumac.

Also see Lisa Hirsch’s blog Iron Tongue of Midnight for excellent translations of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ apology for racist treatment of visiting schoolchildren (“That is not who we are or want to be.”)

https://irontongue.blogspot.com/2019/05/let-me-help-with-this-translation.html

]]> By: sumac https://sorrywatch.com/this-is-not-who-i-am/#comment-214982 Wed, 22 May 2019 23:56:36 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=5995#comment-214982 Another friend sent us a relevant extract from The Laramie Project, the verbatim theater project about the murder of Matthew Shepard.

In this extract, an interviewee quotes someone speaking at meeting and their reaction.

“…let’s show the world that Laramie
is not this kind of a town.’”

But it is this kind of a town.

If it wasn’t, then why did this happen here?
I mean, that’s a lie,
because it happened here.

]]> By: tee https://sorrywatch.com/this-is-not-who-i-am/#comment-214981 Wed, 22 May 2019 20:34:21 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=5995#comment-214981 I must admit that my knee-jerk reaction to the phrase tends to be, “Is it not?”

]]> By: Chuck Karish https://sorrywatch.com/this-is-not-who-i-am/#comment-214978 Tue, 21 May 2019 18:27:35 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=5995#comment-214978 An online acquaintance reminded us of this, from The Daily Show (2004):

“It’s our principles that matter; our inspiring, abstract notions. Just
because torturing prisoners is something we did, doesn’t mean it’s
something we *would* do.”

]]> By: Kiwiwriter https://sorrywatch.com/this-is-not-who-i-am/#comment-214977 Tue, 21 May 2019 14:56:59 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=5995#comment-214977 Very powerful essay.

You just own up…you did it, whatever it was, not the Martians. Period.

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