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Kiwi golf caddie Steve Williams recently offered one of the great non-apologies for his racist rant about Tiger Woods. As weasely behaviour goes, this was truly award-winning material.
Many are the shapes and sizes of the quality non-apology. But if it happened you were genuinely stuck for a good example, it would be hard to go past Williams’ performance in Shanghai the other night, after he described his former employer as a “black a***hole” during the Annual Caddy Awards. Pressed for a mea culpa, he made just about every mistake in the book, eventually leading many to think that, well, he doesn’t really seem sorry at all, therefore he probably IS a racist.
As non-apologies go, this one passed the test on so many levels. First the claim it was a joke: “if you can’t have a bit of fun, what’s the world coming to…”. Then, in a strangely Clintonesque way, the bold-faced denial: “I did not say those two words”; followed by the more incriminating: “Things get taken out of context”. Nothing like a bit of wholesale insincerity to make sure everyone knows where he stands. Fertile ground, indeed, for the fake apology.
And how splendidly fake it was when it arrived. Afficianados of the non-apology would have approved of the tactics. First the attempt to minimise the seriousness of the misconduct, as if anyone who objected was just being thin-skinned. Then the suggestion that “black a**hole” wasn’t a derogatory term at all, and that those who thought otherwise were simply misinterpreting the message. Stock-and-trade stuff when seeking to duck responsibility.
“I now realise how my comments could be construed as racist,” he said. Construed? Construed? A white man calls a black man a “black a**hole” and he thinks that possibly, in a strange way and if you really stretch your imagination, the comments could be viewed as being just a smidgeon on the Klu Klux Klan side of the divide? As one of the caddies in attendence was reported to have said: “We knew he was an idiot but we didn’t know he was a racist idiot.” Read more
- Source: Richard Boock in Auckland Now
- Image: Celebrity Net Worth
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