^{by Tom Head, About.com Guide to Civil Liberties}

One issue that concerned some readers in the wake of the Don Imus scandal is: After a celebrity has apologized for saying something offensive, what comes next?

The first thing that enters my mind is "Did the remark help the person who made it to such an extent that it could have been, or could have looked like, a calculated gamble?" For example:

• When Joe Biden called Barack Obama "the first African-American [presidential candidate] who's clean, bright, and articulate," for example, he didn't just slam Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, and Carol Moseley Braun. He didn't just reduce Obama to a plucky young stereotype. He gave weight to the claims of people within his own party, people who looked up to him, who might have thought that a black man couldn't become president. And he happened to be one of Obama's opponents himself, so he directly benefitted from any damage his remark might have done.
• When Don Imus made the infamous remark about the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team, it got him extensive press coverage followed by a $20 million settlement with CBS Radio and a new contract with another company. More people know who Don Imus is than at any other time in his life. Whatever else we might say about Imus' comment, it would have been a great business decision for him.
• When Reed Walters, the LaSalle Parish district attorney who prosecuted the Jena Six, expressed great surprise that "a disaster didn't happen" when black civil rights protesters visited the city on September 20th, it played right into white voters' fears of black violence. That could be crucial to his 2008 reelection campaign in a majority-white county where, given his history, he is unlikely to do well among black voters anyway.

The other question I ask myself is "Did the comment cause an unusual amount of damage and, if so, what has the speaker done to heal that damage?" For example:

• Biden already has a great history on civil rights policy, and is a regular speaker at NAACP events. But if he wants to make up for damage his remark might have caused to the campaigns of black elected officials, his presence at fundraising events could be very helpful to black candidates seeking congressional and statewide offices.
• Imus could take some of that $20 million and endow women's basketball scholarships at a number of historically black colleges and universities.
• Walters could more aggressively prosecute the white assailants who attacked Jena Six defendant Justin Bailey with a beer bottle several days before the Jena High School beating incident.

None of this is to say that this will earn the offenders forgiveness, but that shouldn't be their primary objective anyway. The proper response for any ethical human being, upon discovering that they have caused harm, is to try to make up for it.

This is something that I have only slowly learned about racism controversies. Most of the time the controversy isn't about who is and who isn't a racist, as if this were some kind of sociopolitical remake of Where's Waldo. It's about recognizing the damage we do, and refusing to profit from it, and correcting it, and moving forward.

See also:

• Institutional Racism