Criticult.Com

By now, we've all heard about the brouhaha surrounding Jesse Jackson's apparent desire to castrate Barack Obama for telling it like it is (when he correctly insisted that fathers - specifically black fathers - should take their responsibility seriously and be involved in the lives of their offspring).

And we have, of course, also heard the inevitable public apology where Jackson claims he didn't mean what he said, it was a 'mistake', 'taken out of context', yadda yadda yadda.

You could almost write the script:

1. Celebrity says something off color, thinking nobody can hear him.
2. Someone can hear him. Public outcry ensues.
3. Celebrity claims what he said was taken out of context, or that he didn't mean it.
4. Public either forgives and forgets, or doesn't forgive but still forgets.

After all, in the modern 24 hour news cycle, even moral outrage has a shelf life of less than a week. What I find amusing is the fact that whenever celebrities are caught saying something offensive in an unguarded moment, they act as though they're the only people on earth who would never dream of speaking or thinking this way and that we just don't know the real them.

As I mentioned in a previous post on a similar subject, each and every one of us has these moments. We have all expressed hateful, profane or even prejudicial sentiments in private moments in the company of people we trust, thinking that nobody else can hear. We've all said, thought and even done things that if were generally known to our acquaintances would probably end a lot of relationships.

But we all do it, have done it and will do it again. If you are shocked that Jesse Jackson would say something like that I have to ask you, why? You really think that every celebrity's public persona is identical to their personal one? You think just because you're not allowed to say 'shit' on television that this means nobody who is on television ever says it in private either?

You do, so why wouldn't - or shouldn't - they?

I'm not saying what Jackson said was appropriate for the situation by any means. Maybe the criticism struck him a little too close for comfort, having himself fathered a child with a woman who was not his wife some years ago.

The truth hurts, but I digress. Let's look at the nature of the private smear/public apology, shall we?

We've all said rotten things about someone behind their back, and when you do, don't you in a perverse sort of way want them to find out? Human nature is such that the majority of us are loathe to approach someone we have a problem with. Confrontation is a natural and necessary part of life but civilization has bred it out of most of us over the past few millenia so that we all grimace at each other in private.

I'm not talking about run of the mill problems like someone owing you five dollars or your neighbor taking too long to return your lawn mower. This paradigm applies to potentially explosive, personal issues that if pursued face to face with someone, might seriously or even permanently damage your relationship.

Jackson and Obama are ostensibly allies, if not friends. So, were Jackson to call Obama on the phone and say "I think you're talking down to blacks and I would like to chop off your balls!" It's more than likely someone is going to get removed from someone else's Christmas card list at the very least.

So when we have such a problem with someone we stew in it, afraid to approach them and therefore unable to resolve it. So what do we do? We tell someone else how we feel and secretly hope it gets back to the person in question. And when it does, and they confront us, what do we invariably say?

"What? Who told you that?"

Because we don't have the guts to take ownership of our feelings or to deny them, we just want to make sure we know they got the information from the intended source. After all, isn't it the height of arrogance and weakness to yack about someone behind their back so that someone else can tell the person you despise how you feel about them?

You want them to find out. You just can't bear to tell them yourself and you hope that they'll get the message and change their behavior without the two of you ever having to discuss it. We all know it never works, and if we later apologize for what we said, we invariably claim that 'we didn't mean it'.

I remember apologizing to my parents for getting into the cookie jar once when I was a kid. Of course like most kids I was explicitly instructed never to do this without permission so I simply defied my parents outright. Looking back, I can tell you that nothing will ever make me regret eating a chocolate chip cookie; those things are good. Of course, it didn't feel good to disappoint my parents - I'm not the Devil - but I was mostly sorry I got caught.

I am not saying all apologies are insincere, but I am fairly certain the majority of them are for the benefit of the listener, and and not the speaker.We don't hate the bad things we do nearly as much as we hate getting caught doing the bad things we do.

We've all blurted out 'I hate you' or 'I could kill you right now' in a fit of anger, and I think this is usually considered an exaggeration and can usually be excused. But when you casually mention in front of a room full of people (in front of a camera no less) that you'd like to 'cut a guy's nuts off', not only do you surreptitiously mean for it to get back to him, but you most certainly did mean to say it.

Sorry, but you just don't say shit like that unless you mean it. That's like the guy who fools around on his wife and then tries to say 'It didn't mean anything.'

Of course it means something, ass clown! It means you're not happy with your marriage, and you didn't have the balls to talk to your wife about it! And when you say you want to 'cut a guy's nuts off', that's some serious shit. It means you're seriously raw with someone, and you two really need to straighten some things out.

I just wish people would stop being so disingenuous about it. When is someone finally going to say 'Yes I meant it, but I should have kept it to myself.'

Trust me, when someone makes a racist comment - like say, calling New York City 'hymietown' - and then hastily backtracks when they realize the wrong people heard it they're merely sorry they were overheard. I assure you this does not mean that they've had a change of heart overnight and are now magically no longer racist.

If Jackson had merely said 'I can't believe that guy' or even 'What the fuck is wrong with him?' then maybe that's one thing. But when you say 'I'd like to cut his nuts off' then my friend, it's on. You are seriously pissed at someone and there's no point in trying to hide it. Rather than cutting of the other guy's nuts you need to call up your own and say something to his face like a man.

And if you don't have the guts to do that then let it go. But despite his many accomplishments, Jesse Jackson has shown on more than one occasion that there are more than two sides to him and some of his sides are hypocritical, sleazy and untrustworthy.

Makes me want to shove a red hot poker up his ass.

I'm sorry, I didn't really mean that.