During Sunday night’s televised pageant, the Miss America organization officially apologized to Vanessa Williams — who was the first black woman ever to win the crown, in 1983, only to resign just months later due to a scandal about nude photographs for which she’d posed. “I want to apologize for anything that was said or done that made you feel any less than the Miss America you are and the Miss America you always will be,” said Miss America CEO Sam Haskell.
It was an apology that was 32 years overdue. But better late than never. With that in mind, here are five other public apologies that need making from just the last 32 days.
1. Donald Trump to Carly Fiorina
When asked about his fellow GOP primary candidate Carly Fiorina, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump said, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?”
Trump was quick to argue, in a subsequent appearance on CNN later, that he was talking about Fiorina’s persona. But anyone who thinks Trump’s comment wasn’t flagrantly sexist is mindless enough to, well, maybe vote for Donald Trump. His remark was ridiculously immature and insulting and unbecoming of anyone seeking to be a public leader let alone president of the United States of America. He should apologize.
2. Bernie Sanders to evangelical Millennials
At a convocation speech at Liberty University in Virginia, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders sought to promote common ground with Christian conservatives on issues of economic inequality and help for the poor. But he glossed over social issues — reflecting an ongoing weakness in his candidacy in general — by saying, “I understand that issues such as abortion and gay marriage are very important to you and that we disagree on those issues.”
But Sanders is wrong. While young evangelicals may in fact be even more anti-choice than their elders, 64% of self-identified evangelical Millennials support marriage equality. By some accounts, that makes young evangelicals more supportive of same-sex marriage than even more mainstream Republican voters (and some groups of Democrats). Sanders should apologize to evangelical Millennials for misrepresenting them and painting them with such a broad brush.
3. Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus to the public
Earlier this summer, and continuing at the VMA awards, Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj have been at it. Nicki tried to thoughtfully comment on Twitter that most of the VMA video of the year nominees were fixated on skinny white bodies. “Black women influence pop culture so much, but are rarely rewarded for it,” Minaj tweeted — making a very valid critique. Taylor Swift took Minaj’s tweet personally but the two worked it out and Swift even apologized for misunderstanding the context. But Cyrus slammed Minaj in a subsequent interview, saying Minaj wasn’t making a point about racial justice but just being narcissistic. So then, during the VMAs, on live television, Minaj called host Cyrus a b*tch.
Both Minaj and Cyrus need to apologize — not for the substance of their back-and-forth, especially not Minaj, who is correctly pointing out the deep bias against black women in the music industry and pop culture — but for their outfits. Whatever their differences, they both wore similar outfits with narrow bands of gold fabric barely covering their breasts. Whatever you think of their behavior, their outfits were tasteless. They should apologize to us for hurting our eyeballs.
4. Kim Davis to taxpayers
In 2014, when Kim Davis was elected clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, less than half of eligible voters cast ballots. Among them, just over 53% backed Davis. Arguably even many of those who supported Davis would be outraged that the woman they elected to uphold and execute laws is now outwardly defying them in refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. But whether they voted for Davis or not, fully 100% of Rowan County taxpayers pay the cost of her salary. Which they shouldn’t have to, considering she is not doing her job.
Kim Davis should apologize to the citizens of Rowan County whose hard earned money should go toward paying a county clerk who actually follows the law, rather than actively breaking it.
5. The media to America
According to new polling, despite his perpetually offensive and irresponsible comments, Donald Trump’s support among Republican voters is only growing. I do not attribute this entirely to the popularity of his political views, for if I were to do so I would have to give into an unimaginably dismal view of a broad swath of the American public.
Sure, there’s some of that — some voters do gravitate toward Trump despite this thinly veiled racist and sexist remarks. But frankly, early polling is also driven by name recognition and attention, and the media is giving Trump heaping handfuls of both.
Trump is apparently good for ratings. So are natural disasters. Just because it’s human nature to crane our necks and look at an accident doesn’t mean it’s in the best interest of humanity to do so. And covering Trump is like yanking the nation’s neck to keep giving him attention. If even 1% of Trump’s support is due to the media’s overhyping his candidacy, the media owes the entire nation a giant apology.
