Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) blog, blog, news, politics, race

Dennis Rodman’s apology for outburst on Kenneth Bae might still produce a “silver lining”

From CNN and Reuters, snippets of the Dennis Rodman apology:

“I want to first apologize to Kenneth Bae’s family,” Rodman, 52, said Thursday in a statement released by his publicist Jules Feiler. “I want to apologize to my teammates and my management team. I also want to apologize to Chris Cuomo.”

 “I embarrassed a lot of people,” said Rodman, who traveled to North Korea with other former NBA players for a basketball game against a North Korean team. “I’m very sorry. At this point I should know better than to make political statements. I’m truly sorry.”

He said the day of the interview had been “very stressful.”

“Some of my teammates were leaving because of pressure from their families and business associates,” he said, adding that his dream of “basketball diplomacy was quickly falling apart.”

“I had been drinking,” he said. “It’s not an excuse but by the time the interview happened I was upset. I was overwhelmed.”

 

I still feel Rodman may have inadvertently given the Bae family some hope. I know the family is outraged, but more people know about Kenneth Bae today than did after Bae’s mother went to visit Bae in North Korea last month.  That was a :30 second blip on the news, if that.

Now people are at least  wondering about Bae and talking about him in a way that could force real diplomatic action.

As silver linings go, it’s an odd one. But when dealing with North Korea, you take your silver linings where you can get them.

 

 

 

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VIDEO: Classy, teary apology from MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry should be more than enough to satisfy the aggrieved on the Right

We can debate whether it was  a trumped up controversy or not, but MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry gave an apology anyway for comments made on her show about the adopted African American grandchild of Mitt Romney.

The apology sure wasn’t one of those infamous non-apologies that people who aren’t really sorry tend to give.  MHP’s was heart-felt, emotional, and sincere. As the namesake of the show, she showed real courage and integrity by standing up to the heat.  It’s the kind of apology that makes you like the person more, not less. And based on the alleged “crime,” I don’t think the Right needed much more than a clarification.  It shouldn’t have required  such a full blown apology.

But she did one. And took responsibility for everything.  She didn’t deflect, try to blame guests, producers, etc.  She put it all on her shoulders.  You’d think that should earn her  some brownie points from her critics. But she continues to be bashed on conservative sites for her “crocodile tears.” The woman’s from New Orleans, but those weren’t crocodile tears.

She deserves credit for putting aside the b.s. of political TV talk and just being real.

Here’s the apology:

 

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blog, diversity, journalism, news, politics

Unemployed critic, a journalist of color gets aid from internet: Craig Lindsey shows minority journalists aren’t part of some protected class

 

I feel for Craig Lindsey, a laid off critic, who went on-line saying he will be “snarky” for food.

 

He’s also African American.

 

At least he didn’t  have to go on traffic island and get red-light donations.

 

It was the first news story of 2014 that I saw, reported in Richard Prince’s Journa-lisms blog. (See link below).

 

When I got laid off at NPR, a top network TV exec had lunch with me and offered no job.

 

Said exec: “Time to be entrepreneurial.”

 

That’s what modern corporatists call” do-it-yourself welfare.”

 

That was in 1991, the beginning of the end of the notion of “safety net.”

 

Republicans have perfected the idea since then. More than a million lost their unemployment benefits last week. Another million could lose benefits by February.

 

Craig’s story reminded me how there’s some myth that journalists of color are spared from layoffs, as we’re somehow part of some “protected” class. You know, how minorities got their jobs to fill some imaginary quota to have diversity in newsrooms.

 

Never been my experience. There’s  still a form of “last hired, first fired” at work out there.

 

Call it “Reverse Equality.”

 

As I was reading about Craig,  I saw a network report on a morning show by a reporter, who 15 years ago was the hot female anchor on the network. Now she is rarely seen and plays utility reporter, national news quickies from the New York desk.

 

But she’s weathered all economic storms. She’s white, female. And protected.

 

See Richard Prince in “Journal-isms” on Craig Lindsey:

http://mije.org/richardprince/jobless-critic-raises-4g-stave-homelessness

 

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Happy New Year Everyone! Get ready for an amok 2014.

When I visited Thailand last November, I went to Wat Tham in Phuket. There are monkeys all around that greet you, but it’s not known as the monkey cave.

It’s the Cave of the Reclining Buddha.

Buddha isn’t reclining because Phuket has great beaches. His position is akin to phases of the moon. He stands, sits, and reclines.

And he gives fortunes.

You actually get them from  a strange contraption inside the cave that looked like a pinball machine, and claimed to have some sort of predictive power over the future.

So I inserted my coin offering, and the machine lit up a number: 15.

There’s a peg board on the side with a fortune for every number.  And as you can see, 15 isn’t so bad.

Whoever is the fortune writer for the Buddha cave is A-OK in my book. I’m keeping this one in perpetuity.

Happy New Year!

 

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Emil Guillermo's amok commentary on race, politics, diversity…and everything else. It's Emil Amok's Takeout!