A Good Apology by Molly Howes

Author:Molly Howes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2020-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

Talk directly to the person affected. In the story described earlier, David was told by a third party that his friend’s dad had been hurt by his actions. He countered the family style of indirect communication, went straight to the person he had hurt, and did what he could to heal their relationship.

Indirect inquiry, that is, speaking to someone else about what the hurt person felt, can be tempting. And as discussed in Chapter 4, sometimes it’s your only option. Most frequently, though, this kind of communication pattern leads to a game of telephone or gossip, where information gets distorted. Worse, conveying your regrets by way of someone else seems cowardly and insincere. This kind of poor apology can do the opposite of its intended purpose: The hurt person feels confused, possibly manipulated, and ultimately worse. It’s face-to-face humanity that makes the difference in a statement of empathy and responsibility.

For example, former vice president Joe Biden has told many people that he owes Anita Hill an apology for how his Senate Judiciary Committee treated her. In the 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, committee members harshly interrogated her about her claims of sexual harassment. Their behavior has been widely criticized as disrespectful, if not aggressive. However, over twenty-eight years, Mr. Biden hadn’t even tried to deliver that apology to her, which had left the mistreatment unaddressed for her and raised questions about his sincerity. In Ms. Hill’s home, it became a family joke: If someone knocked on the door when the Hills weren’t expecting anyone, they said, “Oh, is that Joe Biden coming to apologize?”9

For far too long, he left the offense only indirectly addressed and the subject unsettled. When he finally did reach out to her, just as he announced his candidacy for president in the 2020 race, he made a seriously flawed attempt. He neglected to take responsibility for his own actions in the situation. What he said was that he regretted “what she endured,” that he was “sorry for the way she got treated” by his colleagues.10 That’s more like the condolence or sympathy “I’m sorry” than an apology “I’m sorry.” For good measure, he also failed to deliver Steps Three and Four: He did not make any attempt at restitution, and he did nothing to change the future of such harmful experiences.

Suitably, Ms. Hill did not accept his communication as a good apology.11

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