Apologies Accepted

Juneteenth: Walmart Sells Everything

Juneteenth is now a nationally recognized holiday.  If you haven't heard of it, it's the day that the Union Army liberated the last of the enslaved people in the US.  They rode into town and decreed "you were freed two years ago" and the 250,000 newly emancipated people celebrated.  The following year they celebrated again, but then some laws came down that prohibited black people from publically celebrating anything ever.  Even emancipation.

Juneteenth was still observed privately by families and churches, but public celebrations were legally forbidden to black people - for about 100 years (and counting).

Fast forward 156 years and now corporations are celebrating right along with everyone else by selling Juneteenth plates, cups, wine, and ice cream.  It was the Juneteenth Ice Cream that raised some eyebrows - mostly maybe because Walmart tried to trademark Juneteenth (which is like trying to trademark "Thanksgiving" or "Christmas") but also maybe because it was a rip off of a black owned ice cream brand but also maybe because it was just plain distasteful (c'mon, you have to give us that pun!).

13% of the US population is black, but 21% of Walmart's employees are black.  Somehow none of those black employees were in the decision room when someone decided to trademark the word Juneteenth and someone else decided "it's the freedom for me" would make a great slogan.  

Hi, Walmart - we thought we were clear with the Christmas Sweater fiasco but apparently not clear enough: you need to call us and ask for our input before you ever release another product.  We'll be glad to pitch in, and with our help, you'll never again have to appear as a special guest star on Apologies Accepted, the podcast.  

 

Lufthansa: Antisemitism for all!

Luftwaffe (sorry, sorry, we mean Lufthansa) airline had an issue in early May.  Apparently a handful of people had not worn their face masks properly (or at all - it's a bit confused as to what actually happened) on an international flight from NYC to Frankfurt, Germany.  The 5 or 10 people were jewish and on their way to Hungary in observance of a holy day of memory.  Luftwaffe (sorry, sorry, we mean Lufthansa) decided that ALL 100 to 150 JEWISH PEOPLE ON THE FLIGHT WOULD HAVE TO BE DETAINED AT FRANKFURT AIRPORT FOR 24 HOURS.

Yes, because a few people disobeyed a rule, everyone of the same ethnicity was held at Frankfurt airport, surrounded by 25 German police officers, and told they could not board any Luftwaffe (this time we mean Luftwaffe) flights for 24 hours.  It didn't matter that the 100 people were strangers to each other, not all part of the same club or the same family - they just shared jewishness in common.  Non-Jewish people on the same flight were allowed to make their connections without issue.

Luftwaffe issued an apology for the "accidental" antisemitism.  Their slogan is "Say Yes to The World" and it seems like they their Frankfurt team sort of forgot that Jewish people are part of the world.

We've revised their slogan to more accurately reflect their corporate values: "Say Yes to the World (but no to Jews)".  You're welcome, Luftwaffe airlines!  And welcome to the world of Apologies Accepted, where we also say yes to the world (but no to antisemitism).

Radiation: Y 5 a X2b or The Glow from Within

No surprise that the US Government conducted secret radiation tests on civilians in the 1940s and up through the 1970s.  It's almost not even worth mentioning that the radiation was injected secretly, without warning or consent, into innocent people to see what happens.

What happened was a formula that allowed scientist to backtrace from your internal bodily radiation levels to the point of exposure, the Langham Power-Function Model or Y 5 a X2b. Oh, and a bunch of people died, but not from radiation sickness! They were terminally ill to begin with.

Bill Clinton apologized for these secret radiation experiments in 1995, but we have to go all the way back to 1860 to understand what radiation is, what did its discovery mean to science, and how does all of this get from Madam Marie Curie to the passage of laws around informed consent?

 

Vegans: Soy Sorry

Hot Irish twin brothers, Dave and Steve Flynn, are mega-vegan influencers and owners of The Happy Pear, a café and lifestyle brand (and podcast!).  They love helping people get healthy and happy.  They recently gave some advice around beating breast cancer – eat mushrooms!  There was also some stuff about increasing your soy intake that became mixed up with the idea of vegetables increasing or decreasing cancer…it’s confusing because none of it is true but it’s all science-y enough that it starts to sound believable.

 

Some real-life doctors took exception to the brothers’ mushroom advice and some people got mad so the twins, who are super nice guys, went online to apologize for hurting people’s feelings.

 

The apology hurt some more feelings and we’re here to walk you through the Happy Pear story and dispel some myths that some lying vegans want you to believe!  What is a vegan, where did they come from, and most importantly of all, why are the vegetarians so jealous of them?

Rachel Dolezal: Not Sorry for Who I Am

Rachel Dolezal became world famous on June 11, 2015 when a reporter asked her if her father was white.  This seemed like an odd question, why would anyone care?  Weirdly, people cared.  Rachel had been presenting herself as black for years but the reality was both her parents were white and so was she.  Rachel had constructed a public persona of a black woman, and it was believable.  She had photos of a black man she said was her dad, had two black children, and had worked tirelessly as an activist and president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP.  When the reporter outed her as white, her world came crumbling down.  Her friends felt betrayed, she lost her job, her volunteer positions, most of her family, her place in the community, her reputation - she lost everything.

 

Did she deserve it?  Was she a fraud?  Did she have a valid reason to claim membership to another racialized group? Is race biological or is it a social construct, made up by people?  Is race something that doesn't exist in nature and more importantly, does her refusal to apologize mean that she doesn't understand the issue - or that we don't?

 

We talk through the history of racism, the biological and social realities of "race", and consider the parallels between race and gender in this extra special edition of Apologies Accepted.

Scotland: Witches are Lit

On International Women's Day in March of 2022, Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, issued a formal apology for the thousands of people Scotland burned at the stake from the 1500s to the 1700s.  Most of those people were women, and it seemed fitting to the First minister, as the first woman to ever hold the title, to apologize during international women's Month (it's every March, guys), on March 8th, International Women's Day, for all the women (and men) the government of Scotland murdered for turning into cats and spoiling ale.

We tackle the history of Scottish witches by examining the life of Isobel Gowdie, Queen of the Witches!  As a self-confessed witch in the 1600s, she is the woman who gave rise to witch lore and a voice to fairy lore.  Her life is largely unknown but her four confessions have withstood the test of time, fascinating scholars and witches alike for the last two hundred years.

Find out why, and hide the matches, when we explore witchcraft and State-craft this episode!

Kenny Shiels: Soccer Boys Don’t Cry

Kenny Shiels is the coach of the Northern Ireland's women's national team, and he has something he wants you to know about women.  Their emotions get in the way of their ability to play sports.  See, women are toooooooooooo emotional to play sports, and that is the hardest part about coaching women. His team lost 5-0 defeat to England, a loss which ended their chances at the Women's World Cup in 2023.  That's a pretty big deal in the soccer world.

After his comments to a press group, there was a bit of pushback from the soccer community.  Male soccer players recounted plenty of times they themselves cried during a game, and since the internet is now a thing and isn't going anywhere, there were quotes on the internet of Kenny Shiels himself admitting to almost thinking about sort of maybe tearing up kinda maybe sorta because of a football game.

Since we know nothing about sports, we turned to science!  Not even just science, but the big guns - neuroscience.  We break down the neuroscience behind emotions, as well as the history, and gender differences.  And with the help of Brain Science (a podcast by Dr. Ginger Campbell and pretty dang good!) we sound pretty smart explaining the shifting landscape of the modern science behind emotions.

The Pope: A Sorry for All Time

He's back, this time with an actual apology.  When the hidden grave sites of 215 children were discovered in 2021 at a Residential school in Canada, the Pope expressed sorrow without expressing an apology.  Now it's 2022 and 1,700 children's graves later, the Pope apologized in person to victims and families of the Catholic Residential School system.  Residential schools were active until 1998 and the hidden graves of children are still being discovered today.  Some estimates go as high as 6,000 missing/disappeared children as a direct result of the Catholic Residential School system.

And although Pope Francis apologized, and promised to come to Canada in July of 2022, it turns out he need not have worried because 22 years ago, on March 12, 2000, the then current Pope, John Paul II, issued an apology on behalf of the Catholic church to echo across all nations and throughout all time: some Christians sinned and the church is sorry about that.

The apology of Pope Francis is a (yes, a and not an) historical moment for his followers.  Popes have been apologizing since 1965 for all sorts of horrible things - but this apology is different because it's not a proclamation, it's a first step in a who-knows-however-long-unfolding story of sorry that spans a hundred years and generations of Canadian children's short and lost lives.

 

Will Smith: A Slap Full of Love

If you haven't heard, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock across the face during the March 2022 Academy Awards.  If he had done cartwheels across the stage, naked and on fire, we couldn't have been more surprised.  Chris had made a joke about Will's wife's shaved head, and Will wasn't having it.  First he laughed, and then seconds later he strode across the stage and slapped Chris Rock, a comedian, across the face for telling a lame joke.  If only we all had such power - Look out, Amy Schumer! 

Will apologized for the incident twice, once a few minutes after the slap while accepting his academy award for best actor.  The second time on Instagram, a day later.  The first time he apologized to the Academy, everyone in the room, everyone watching on TV, Everyone in the world, everyone in the world excluding a certain Mr. Chris Rock.  The second time he apologized directly to Chris Rock.  Everyone in the world had a lot to say about it, everyone except Chris Rock who is keepin' it classy and writing a comedy show about it (probably, like how could he not).  The other person keeping quiet is a certain Mr. Will Smith who is reportedly hanging out in Dubai with a certain Prince of Dubai, a certain Prince who certainly is very, very, good friends with a certain Mr. Will Smith.  Certainly.

Anyway - Will justified his love of slapping by saying he was a fierce protector of his family.  Just like Richard Williams, the guy he portrayed in the film that was the reason he won best actor at the Oscars - he was fiercely protecting his wife's honor from low-level humor.  Richard Williams answered by condemning the violence and saying that Will Smith was in the wrong.

And somehow, Venus and Serena Williams are once again on the "Hollywood making you feel worthless" tour.  First Jane Campion told them that they don't compete against men so therefore they aren't really "competing" and then Will Smith slapped any chance they had at celebrating their father by using him as an excuse to slap a comedian for telling bad jokes.

And comedians everywhere are certainly afraid.

Jane Campion: No Filter

Jane Campion stuck her foot in her mouth at the Critics Choice Awards this year.  She was talking about how she had tried to play tennis and found it really hard.  She was funny and charming and self-depricating.  She was off to a good start.  Venus and Serena Williams were sitting right in front of her and she was paying them a compliment for their skills as professional athletes.  But, Jane said, as great as the sisters are at tennis, they don't play against men the way that she, Jane Campion, must compete against men in Hollywood.  There is not women's league of directors, no best female director category.  Just ol' Jane, slugging it out with the boys.  Everyone clapped and Venus Williams grimaced and became a meme for a hot minute until Will Smith slapped Chris Rock...we'll get to the slap apology next week, we promise.  For now, let's get back to Jane's apology.

The Williams sisters were at the Critics Choice awards because they were executive producers of a bio-pic about their father.  Their film, King Richard, was up for prizes and competing against Jane's film, The Power of the Dog.  Jane's comment was supposed to be about how hard it is for women in Hollywood to be taken seriously (or get jobs behind the camera).  Instead it became about tearing other people down to stand atop the shredded flesh of their humiliated bodies in order to grab prizes hanging just out of reach above your head.

Jane felt bad when everyone on the internet told her that she had diminished the Williams sisters' accomplishments.  Jane apologized and her street cred as a liberal speaks volumes - her remark was not intentionally racist and she is truly sorry for having misspoken.  Plus she didn't smack Chris Rock across the face so really can't we just let bygones be bygones.

No, Jane.  No, we can't.  We'll see you on this episode of Apologies Accepted.