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Charlyne Yi accuses David Cross of being racist toward her

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Jag

Member
The ONLY thing you can say in such a situation is "holy shit, I'm an asshole, I apologize sincerely, and will work to never be like that again - fuck me"... or something along those lines.

Not if he never said it. You have 3 options. You can own it and apologize, you can deny it or you can say you don't remember it, which appears to be what he is attempting to say. The hashtag was bullshit though.

If someone accused me of something racist that I don't remember, I would probably say "I honestly don't remember. I don't think I would have said those things, but I'm sorry you think I did". Not much more you can say about something you don't remember.
 

aliengmr

Member
If I was accused of doing something racist that I knew I didn't do I would be much more aggressive in my denial.

The reason you "thread the needle" is because you don't think you did anything super racist but you're not really sure and maybe you did something kind of racist.

The more aggressively you deny being racist, the more racist you are. It doesn't matter if it is true or not.
 

pigeon

Banned
The more aggressively you deny being racist, the more racist you are. It doesn't matter if it is true or not.

This seems to be a covert assumption in this thread -- once somebody accuses you of being racist, it's all over and there's nothing you can do.

This is also a philosophy I have encountered during my life! White people hold this philosophy because they don't understand social justice, don't really want to, and treat it as a complicated ritual behavior rather than an actual moral imperative.

In real life, of course, this is not how things work. The belief that it does work this way is part of white resistance to the existence of racism.
 
I may be wrong, but yeah, I just think sometimes, okay, David Cross was a cunt to a person, okay, but like...Twitter tho? Just tell him he's a cunt and ask for an apology in person or call him up, I don't know...
I mean, no doubt he was a prick here, and he should apologise, but like I don't think he's secretly Hitler or he's a murderer, he was just a giant ass to one person, so they should settle it.
I'm too old for this shit.
 

Zen Aku

Member
Right. He's unwilling to fully deny it because he knows he's probably done some racist stuff, so maybe he did this racist thing. That's what I said.

There's something really interesting about all these responses, which is that they primarily treat this situation as a PR crisis management situation.

If people are actually accusing you of things you know you didn't do, that's not a PR crisis management situation, that's just slander. Yes, just saying "none of that is true, I have character witnesses" is a normal response to random out-of-the-blue slander.

The fact that Cross's response is obviously crisis management (and these replies perhaps unconsciously know that, since they're analyzing it from a crisis management perspective) should be telling in itself.

sure he might have said or done racist stuff but that doesn't mean he should automatically admit guilt whenever someone come up to him and accuse him of saying something racist.

Lol so you expected him to come up with witnesses to a random meeting 10 years ago to prove that none of the things she said happened? Okay man.

You're letting your emotions affect your judgement. Seriously, put yourself in his shoes. If someone accused you of something like this and you very well don't remember it. Admitting to guilt does not help you in any way. The best way is to give that person the benefit of the doubt and contact them and try to piece together that night. Which is what he did.

You were ready to pull out the pitchfork.

Not if he never said it. You have 3 options. You can own it and apologize, you can deny it or you can say you don't remember it, which appears to be what he is attempting to say. The hashtag was bullshit though.

If someone accused me of something racist that I don't remember, I would probably say "I honestly don't remember. I don't think I would have said those things, but I'm sorry you think I did". Not much more you can say about something you don't remember.
This.
 

OnPoint

Member
I love how you can glean so much about a character from their terrible non-apologies.

Good people never have a problem with sincerely apologizing.

I'm torn, because if he truly believes he didn't do it, why would he apologize?

That said, I don't want to call Yi a liar, so it's a really awful catch-22 moment where, as an outsider, I don't know who to believe or side with.

His phrasing sucks and is incredibly clumsy, that's for sure. There were better ways to handle this.
 
He doesn't think he did it. Put yourself in that position and think about whether you'd just "own up to it."

He tried to thread the needle here by expressing sympathy but without saying he did something he doesn't think he did.

This isn't hard, which is why David's non-apology is garbage-tier awful.

You apologize to the person for clearly hurting them, because at the end of the day, that's the entire fucking point. He hurt her, regardless of what he specifically said, and it left a lasting impression on her, 10 years later. You can say I don't recall the specifics or saying those particular things, but still own up for clearly hurting someone profoundly. At the same time, you can acknowledge that bullying and racism are wrong in any context, and be remorseful for having done anything that betrays that stance.

His "apology" does none of these things.
 

pigeon

Banned
sure he might have said or done racist stuff but that doesn't mean he should automatically admit guilt whenever someone come up to him and accuse him of saying something racist.

That is actually my point.

Lol so you expected him to come up with witnesses to a random meeting 10 years ago to prove that none of the things she said happened? Okay man.

Google "character witness."

You're letting your emotions affect your judgement. Seriously, put yourself in his shoes. If someone accused you of something like this and you very well don't remember it. Admitting to guilt does not help you in any way. The best way is to give that person the benefit of the doubt and contact them and try to piece together that night. Which is what he did.

Actually, I'm not. A lot of other people are letting their emotions affect their judgement because they don't want to believe a comedian they like could do something racist, but that's not my problem. For example, you spent an entire post suggesting that I'm arguing he should admit to guilt, which is literally the opposite of the argument I am making.
 
I'm torn, because if he truly believes he didn't do it, why would he apologize?

That said, I don't want to call Yi a liar, so it's a really awful catch-22 moment where, as an outsider, I don't know who to believe or side with.

His phrasing sucks and is incredibly clumsy, that's for sure. There were better ways to handle this.
If you sincerely don’t remember having a racist interaction with someone, then that’s more indicative of how you interact with others on a daily basis.
 
I'm not familiar with the film (I've seen a few other Kurosawa films but not that one), but I am loath to give this guy the benefit of the doubt when the rest of his "apology" is such a disaster (which we do agree on).
I think this is the problem. It's a pretty well-known film which is all about how human memory is imperfect and our brains construct different versions of the same events. Painting it as "some random Asian thing" is imo way more offensive than Cross mentioning it while talking to an Asian person.

The issue I had with the hashtag was not that it's an Asian film, but that it seemed kinda flippant to toss that off at the end. In fact the whole "apology" is basically a big shrug, which is pretty shitty.
 
Did we all forget that David Cross is/was good buds and business partner of men's rights activist and neo-nazi sympathizer Gavin McInnes?
Not to be too much of a devil's advocate, but that first video is eight years old, the second one five years, and both of those are older than a lot of personal severing points in my friendships, due to topical either encouraging or uncovering some unsavory sides of former friends.

Also, David Cross is from Atlanta, and not to cast dispersions about the entire city, when I lived there it certainly operated on a sliding scale compared to NYC or LA.
 
That is actually my point.
Google "character witness."
Actually, I'm not. A lot of other people are letting their emotions affect their judgement because they don't want to believe a comedian they like could do something racist, but that's not my problem. For example, you spent an entire post suggesting that I'm arguing he should admit to guilt, which is literally the opposite of the argument I am making.

To your point here, Tilda Swinton went ahead and released her email exchanges after being accused of racism by Margaret Cho. Those emails aren't great, honestly, but the point is that she released them in her defense because (she believed) she wasn't being racist.

If Cross could sit down and say, "I definitely never did anything like that" then he'd just come out and say that. The reason he posted what he did is precisely because he couldn't say with certainty that her accusation is out of character for him.
 
I don't really think being on drugs excuses your behavior. I've been under the influence and on illicit substances multiple times and somehow saying racist things towards other people didn't magically manifest.

I wasn't excusing his behavior. I was saying that it's possible they're both telling the truth, as a lot of people are automatically saying that he's a liar just because he's denying an accusation based on a lack of memory. If he doesn't remember, he doesn't remember. There's no reason to assume he's being dishonest.

Saying he's not a liar =/= What he's accused of is ok.
 

Joe

Member
"I don't remember if I made fun of a poor Asian person for being poor and Asian after just being introduced" doesn't by itself make someone a monster but it's at the least a sign of something rotten inside.
 
Not to be too much of a devil's advocate, but that first video is eight years old, the second one five years, and both of those are older than a lot of personal severing points in my friendships, due to topical either encouraging or uncovering some unsavory sides of former friends.

Also, David Cross is from Atlanta, and not to cast dispersions about the entire city, when I lived there it certainly operated on a sliding scale compared to NYC or LA.

As she said, we can only hope he's changed. But honestly, Gavin McInnes has been a notorious, racist asshole for a long, long time. If you thought it was a good idea to partner up with him in 2013, well...
 
The issue I had with the hashtag was not that it's an Asian film, but that it seemed kinda flippant to toss that off at the end. In fact the whole "apology" is basically a big shrug, which is pretty shitty.
Yeah, it was how he used Rashemon (to discredit her story), not that he used Rashemon. It's the quintessential film about differences in how an event was experienced / remembered.
 

Froli

Member
Yeahhh no. You don't forget stuff like that specially things you feel really humiliated.

It will stick on you
 

Takuan

Member
Not to be too much of a devil's advocate, but that first video is eight years old, the second one five years, and both of those are older than a lot of personal severing points in my friendships, due to topical either encouraging or uncovering some unsavory sides of former friends.

Also, David Cross is from Atlanta, and not to cast dispersions about the entire city, when I lived there it certainly operated on a sliding scale compared to NYC or LA.

Yeah I mean Shane (co-founder of VICE) was also tight with Gavin way back when, until they had a falling out due to incompatible world views. People change over time and part ways over less.
 

Jombie

Member
I don't doubt that Cross is capable of being a smarmy asshole, but following him for most of his career, I have a hard time believing he's a racist.
 

Zen Aku

Member
It’s not; people who are victims of racialized speech and interactions tend to remember that while the perpetrators consider it their baseline behavior.

But you're assuming the accuser is always truthful with their accusation or at the very least remembering it 100%

You're looking at it in a black or white manner. If I accuses Obama of being racist toward me and he doesn't remember it. Does that me he's so normally racist that its his baseline? Or there might be a possibility that I misremembering.
 

frequency

Member
"I can't remember this. I'm really sorry if I did this thing."
vs
"I can't remember this. I'm not calling you a liar but I can't remember it so maybe you can't either."
 

L Thammy

Member
Maybe he wasn't racist in that deep, immutable part of his soul when he did this. Maybe that's how they both got it wrong and she's not a liar.
 

BossLackey

Gold Member
If you don't remember doing something like that, it means either you were drunk or high, or you do it a lot. The idea that you can be that blatantly disrespectful to someone to their face and not even remember it sort of makes you an even bigger asshole.

#prometheus

Or because, you know, it was a decade ago. Not defending him, but I wouldn't be able to remember what I did a year ago, let alone 10.
 

Zhengi

Member
Not if he never said it. You have 3 options. You can own it and apologize, you can deny it or you can say you don't remember it, which appears to be what he is attempting to say. The hashtag was bullshit though.

If someone accused me of something racist that I don't remember, I would probably say "I honestly don't remember. I don't think I would have said those things, but I'm sorry you think I did". Not much more you can say about something you don't remember.

So you're only sorry that someone thought you were racist and not actually the act of being racist?
 
Or it happened ten years ago and he sincerely can't recall.
Which is what I’m saying? If you victimized someone in that situation, then you’re more likely to forget what transpired.

But you're assuming the accuser is always truthful with their accusation or at the very least remembering it 100%

You're looking at it in a black or white manner. If I accuses Obama of being racist toward me and he doesn't remember it. Does that me he's so normally racist that its his baseline? Or there might be a possibility that I misremembering.
Are we using ridiculous hypotheticals on the assumption that Yi has something to gain from lying? Further, Cross already admitted the interaction occurred, just the exact events might be misremebered. He still had a racialized interaction with Yi, he already admitted as such.
 
Lol such a back handed apology. Way to make me not believe a single word you have to say about what happened. Jackass


Or it happened ten years ago and he sincerely can't recall.
If he sincerely can’t eecall then maybe he shouldn’t call her a liar who can’t remember what happened. She seems able to remember just fine.
 

pigeon

Banned
Maybe he wasn't racist in that deep, immutable part of his soul when he did this. Maybe that's how they both got it wrong and she's not a liar.

This is funny but it’s also maddening because so many people legit argue this. In this thread, even!
 
No we're using the hypothetical on the assumption that people memories are not 100% infallible, especially an event that happened 10 years ago.
So are you saying that they never interacted? Because Cross already admitted that the particular event Yi described did, in fact, happen.
 

Kinyou

Member
This seems to be a covert assumption in this thread -- once somebody accuses you of being racist, it's all over and there's nothing you can do.

This is also a philosophy I have encountered during my life! White people hold this philosophy because they don't understand social justice, don't really want to, and treat it as a complicated ritual behavior rather than an actual moral imperative.

In real life, of course, this is not how things work. The belief that it does work this way is part of white resistance to the existence of racism.
Is there an example of someone aggressively denying it and it turned out well for them? I believe if David Cross had went down that route he'd look even worse now.
 
I don't know if the defensiveness is coming from worrying that people are accusing him of being a Nazi or something, but it seems like a wasted effort

Dude's entire shtick is "cynical asshole". He's built his career on it, especially with Mr. Show. He made some ignorant stereotypical remarks that sound like he framed it as "look I'm satirizing ignorant racists" (while just perpetuating the same shit)

If it's a common thing and more people speak up then you'll have a bigger case against him. As it stands it was a really fuckin stupid thing to say, apologize despite "not remembering" and move on. Instead of stupid "hey you had to be there, maybe you took ching-chong the wrong way?" Just makes the whole situation worse
 

pigeon

Banned
Is there an example of someone aggressively denying it and it turned out well for them? I believe if David Cross had went down that route he'd look even worse now.

A prerequisite for this strategy is not having done the bad thing.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Yeahhhh not a very good apology at all. :\

#Rashomon holy shit man.

"This accusation really came out of nowhere..#Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"
Using the hashtag was not a bright idea, but this comparison is stupid.

wait people actually think he included #rashomon because of that film's unreliable narration... good lord
That's obviously why, he didn't just name-drop a random movie because "Asian herp derp".

That said it was dumb of him to include this reference (especially in a vague hashtag) because surely he'd know how people would take it... SMH
 

Zen Aku

Member
So are you saying that they never interacted? Because Cross already admitted that the particular event Yi described did, in fact, happen.

"100% infallible"

The event might have happened, but it may not have went down exactly like how the two of them thought it did. Maybe Yi is 100% correct and David did say all those things. Maybe David is 100% right and none of it happened, or maybe the truth is somewhere in between both of their recollections.
 

Keri

Member
I don't doubt that he remembers things differently. He probably thinks it was obvious he was joking and it was hilarious. I also understand that it's hard to apologize for an event, that you remember differently. But, her memory would obviously be more accurate here. It's much more likely that someone would remember the details of being insulted than the details of a failed joke (giving him the benefit of the doubt). So, he should really just say: "I don't remember this, but I believe you and it sounds like I was a total asshole to you. I'm really sorry and I've since learned not to make such tasteless and inappropriate jokes."
 
I don't doubt that he remembers things differently. He probably thinks it was obvious he was joking and it was hilarious. I also understand that it's hard to apologize for an event, that you remember differently. But, her memory would obviously be more accurate here. It's much more likely that someone would remember the details of being insulted than the details of a failed joke (giving him the benefit of the doubt). So, he should really just say: "I don't remember this, but I believe you and it sounds like I was a total asshole to you. I'm really sorry and I've since learned not to make such tasteless and inappropriate jokes."
Maybe he did say that and you’re just not remembering? #rashomon
 

FiggyCal

Banned
I don't doubt that he remembers things differently. He probably thinks it was obvious he was joking and it was hilarious. I also understand that it's hard to apologize for an event, that you remember differently. But, her memory would obviously be more accurate here. It's much more likely that someone would remember the details of being insulted than the details of a failed joke (giving him the benefit of the doubt). So, he should really just say: "I don't remember this, but I believe you and it sounds like I was a total asshole to you. I'm really sorry and I've since learned not to make such tasteless and inappropriate jokes."

I hope their private conversation was more fruitful.
 
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