White Racial Apology #100,816,024 Deadline's "Unfortunate" Headline -

"Pilots 2015:The Year of  Ethnic Castings -
   About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?"

Cutesy but Serious Format - Bart & Fleming, the apologizers,  must have these little discussions online much like Siskel and Ebert used to quasi-competitively review movies on television.

This would be Mistake Number 1
Two thumbs down

The Apology is just one thing in a list of things to discuss

Here we have Mistake Number 2
"nothing special happening here" conveyed instantly

The apology consisted of apologizing for specific word  choices and word arrangement while never, Ever, EVER EVAH discussing what those words ("Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?") meant collectively... ala the Levi Petty Pettit apology (#100,816,019). As long as they cyber-droned on, they only discussed how things sounded
 

This isn't just mistake number 3, 
this is mistakes numbers 1 through 100,816,021

How is it everybody above the age of 12 understands that beliefs are connected to thoughts are connected to the words that come out of your mouth...until race is the subject.   When race enters the picture, white fragility, being what it is, white folk and Bobby Jindal seem to suffer this pinpoint amnesia and forget there is a link between belief, thought, and words (and sometimes actions too). Yes, sometimes you say "math" when you meant to say "bath."  But really cannot explain away an entire sentence or paragraph this way.

But this isn't about that. 

This is about how most of us understand that putting individual words together give them a separate meaning that's more than the sum of their...parts(?)  And a lot of the time we mean those meanings, regardless of what we want to believe about the purity of our own motivations.

The words that form the question, "Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?" have a meaning collectively.

And most people of color who heard these words, understood their meaning, collectively. That's why, "HELL NO" was the answer cyber-shouted by Shonda Rhimes and a host of entertainment news reading others.  
 
We, the "ethnic," were not confused. We were especially not-confused about the "too much of a good thing" part

And it's very rare we all get confused and lean in the same direction, all at the same time, for the record. I'm not even sure this kind of unified confusion is possible when a thing as complicated as the social construction of race is at the center. 

  But the thing that really killed me about the 100,816,024th white racial "apology"was this:   Bart and Fleming? These two chuckle-heads discussed the true and offensive meaning of the headline without even noticing that they had done so.

Before they started riffing on forever about the offensive uses of the word "ethnic"(???) which led to a discussion of the how boring the word "diversity"(???) is, they actually give us an interpretation of   "Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?" 

FLEMING:

....My co-editor-in-chief Nellie Andreeva’s goal was to convey that there was such an uptick of TV pilot casting of people of color
that it pinched white actors who’ve historically gotten most of the jobs,

Yeah, we know that's what you meant. We KNOOOW.  And we knew when we first read that "unfortunate headline" that "too much of a good thing" was expressing worry over "it pinched white actors"

THE HEART OF THE APOLOGY

FLEMING: I agree with all this, but after our turn in the barrel, I wanted to say a few things to our core readers who felt betrayed.  That original headline does not reflect the collective sensibility here at Deadline. The only appropriate way to view racial diversity in casting is to see it as a wonderful thing, and to hope that Hollywood continues to make room for people of color."


But problem is that  THIS

"Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?"
DOESN'T GET CLOSE TO MEANING

"The only appropriate way to view racial diversity in casting is to see it as a wonderful thing, and to hope that Hollywood continues to make room for people of color."   BUT IT DOES MEAN
  ...My co-editor-in-chief Nellie Andreeva’s goal was to convey that there was such an uptick
of TV pilot casting of people of color
that it pinched white actors
who’ve historically gotten most of the jobs,   ESPECIALLY WHEN FOLLOWED BY     and to question if this could last  if it was being treated as a fad.     which could mean in this particular collection of words
that this is uptick for "ethnics"
is temporary anyway
so why worry about it?    


Nellie may not have intended to convey the same ole, same ole  'What about US? Why isn't there a WHITE HISTORY MONTH!  I'm complaining because 95% of grade school, junior high school, and high school history class being about white wasn't enough.' 

Honestly, she may not have meant to express "What about us?" Again. But the headline, the explanation, and the apology  aren't slips of the tongue. This isn't like saying "math" for "bath." Hard core, card-carrying, overt racists express the very same things in harsher language. How many "bad word choice"  coincidences in a row are we "ethnics" supposed to swallow?





Mmmm.....okay, I admit it. Referring to people as "ethnics " is weird, kinda 1980s, and distancing. But that's what you focus on during a racial apology?  You don't focus on the other obvious meaning of that headline...and why Nellie, and the dozen or so people who read the article before it was published, didn't see what people of color saw almost instantly?

And let me say it one more time - I'm pretty sure Nellie and the gang didn't do any of this deliberately. But that's what scares me.  And when they tried to make it right? I don't even know how to evaluate that.  This blank-eyed apology scared me even more.



Deadline won't be able to fix the race problem, that they don't know they have, which they promised to fix. They can't even see how effortlessly and unconsciously they closed white ranks  --as easily as most of us suck air into our lungs to live.

So I guess we'll just have to wait for Apology #100,816,025. There will always be another one out there waiting for us for so long as the discussions and the apologies are this shallow, and dare I say it, cowardly.

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Doesn't this irk you? As silly as this "apology" was, it's probably the better white racial apologies I've heard lately. Thinking Levi Pettit, the Ex-Chief Of Police In Ferguson.

But Benedict Cumberbatch's was pretty good. I actually believed he was embarrassed. However, I wasn't that bugged by the word "colored" in the first place.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes

Link: Deadline's Apology Discussion Of Bad Word Choice

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EXCERPT FROM THE APOLOGY CHAT SESSION

"All this was undermined by that headline (which we changed after the fact) and a repetition of the word “ethnic”that came off cold and insensitive.

BART: When you and I worked for years in print.... when you realized how it offended people?

FLEMING: ...It was 12 hours before I awoke to.... who were rightfully incensed...damage was done...I observed how Amy Pascal raced around with knee-jerk apologies to anyone who’d listen, after those stolen Sony e-mails surfaced. Her actions felt like panicked damage control to me; we decided to face the consequences and take our lumps. [Yeah,  her WORDS choice the point of the scandal, not what she meant,  not her likely actions that likely walked lock-step with her beliefs, thoughts, and words used]
We did that in the comment tail following that story, where over 700 readers teed off on us. Nellie is trained...to analyze a data sample; the word “ethnic” is commonly used by casting agents....



BART: I have always nodded off at the word ‘diversity’ – it somehow sounds blandly corporate. The dictionary defines [the word] as “composed of distinct forms and qualities” and I find hope in the notion of distinctive. People who are distinctive deserve the opportunities, irrespective of their color.

Having said that, casting people tell me the good news that enormous opportunities have opened up for distinctive actors of color thanks to the success of several new shows... I would like to see the industry launch a drive to recruit a more distinctive (and diverse) array of show runners who, in turn, could nurture a more distinctive (and diverse) creative community. I don’t think the broader opportunities for actors will continue unless that trend is fed by a truly distinct and varied group of writers and producers and, yes, even executives[<--Okay Bart Earned A Few Points Back Here]