A mistake among the digital team
The Times, annoyingly, says in the headline that Romero “apologized” for re-writing Ruth Bader Ginsburg. No he didn’t.
That’s not what happened.
Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Monday that he regretted that a tweet sent out recently by his organization altered the words of a well-known quote by the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Yes he regretted it, but he didn’t apologize. Regretting something isn’t the same as apologizing for it. You can regret forgetting to get coffee at the store without apologizing for it.
The tweet by the A.C.L.U. occasioned mockery and some anger on social media from feminists and others.
Some anger? Lots of anger. White-hot anger.
“We won’t be altering people’s quotes,” Mr. Romero said in an interview on Monday evening. “It was a mistake among the digital team. Changing quotes is not something we ever did.”
Again – not an apology.
Mr. Romero has spoken recently of the cacophony of liberal and left views that now and then spills into the A.C.L.U.’s social media feeds and sometimes requires correction. While he vowed that the A.C.L.U. would not repeat this error, he insisted it “was not a mistake without a thought.” There are people who are pregnant and who seek abortions, he said, who do not identify as women.
“My colleagues do a fantastic job of trying to understand a reality that people who seek abortions are not only women,” he said. “That reality exists.”
The A.C.L.U., he said, could have touched on this emerging reality, one that involves identity, gender and language, without tampering with Justice Ginsburg’s quote. “In today’s America,’’ he said, “language sometimes needs to be rethought.”
None of that is an apology. It’s Romero wishing that tweet hadn’t been tweeted, it’s not Romero apologizing to women or to Ruth Bader Ginsburg or to members of the ACLU.
Dear Anthony;
It doesn’t matter how someone identifies. If she needs an abortion, she is a woman.
You’re Welcome,
Mike
He regrets that he had to spend his time listening to angry women, that’s what he regrets. He regrets that the tweet ruined his day.
Indeed. His regret could easily be simply regret about all the social media uproar, the talking back, the objections, the people canceling their memberships. (People this time, yes, because plenty of men are outraged too.) Regret is like that – it can be just about one’s own convenience or peace and quiet. Apology is another matter entirely.
That’s not a “reality” of any kind. Women — only women — seek abortions. Only women can have an abortion; only women need an abortion. There’s never been anyone in the history of humankind who wanted, needed, got, or suffered an abortion who was not a woman.
Stop pretending to “understand” that anyone other than a woman ever has needed, or ever will need, an abortion. That isn’t real; that’s precisely why you can’t understand it.
‘It was a mistake among the digital team.’ Someone else’s fault! Not me! Nice statement from an executive director, of any kind of organisation.
This isn’t a direct quote, and my suspicion is there’s a strategic reason it isn’t. The idea that trans people “identify” as the opposite sexgender is starting to border on transphobia. The claims and the language are becoming more radical over time. Emphasizing that transmen don’t identify as women strongly implies that they are women. It dates from that long-ago era when a transman was of the female sex, but a man in gender. Strangio recently tweeted that they’re male.
But it sells to the public, who isn’t yet up to speed. Since it’s not a quote, Romero is presumably off the hook. Plus, there’s this:
There has to a rational connection between
1.) Transmen don’t identify as women
and —->
2.) Transmen aren’t women.
Unfortunately, it’s “reproductive anatomy doesn’t matter” which, when talking about pregnancy, is going to be a rough fit.
@ guest:
‘It was a mistake among the digital team.’
You’re right, that’s only regret.
If it was an actual apology, it would have been “We were hacked.”