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I'm so damn tired of Twitter apologies: Zelda La Grange, Max du Preez and CeeLo Green
by Gregory Paitaki

Whatever your present feelings on free speech, isn't the greatest touted virtue of Twitter its immediacy and intimacy: offering insight into people's very innermost thoughts – as they happen? 

 

So we lionise this medium that enables instant revelation and then we abhor when people take to it to do just that: when they tell us what they think, as they think it?

 

Let's get real: do we want honesty and immediacy or not? They come at a price – human imperfection – and we should get used to it already. 

 

Twitter is never going to be a vehicle for fine literature or eloquent debate – nor should it be – or we would lose its invaluable essence: contemporary candour.

 

In a world deluged by political doublespeak, here's a medium that's anathema to it – and we should get down on our knees and thank God.

 

Because when CeeLo Green (hit R&B artist and one-time celebrity judge of reality show The Voice) tweets following his court case, that his having sex with an unconscious woman is not rape – then tweet apologises that his comment was taken out of context and he would never condone harm of any women – I call bullshit.

 

I can because of the intense proximity Twitter affords me. Now, as a very ex-fan, I know exactly what a scumbag like CeeLo Green really thinks.

 

So fuck your bullshit apology and your tweet delete. And thank you Twitter.

At the ANC's birthday fundraiser, President Jacob Zuma told guests that all South Africa's troubles began with Van Riebeeck's colonialism in 1652.

Zelda La Grange, Nelson Mandela's longtime personal assistant, tweeted in response that Zuma's remarks made her feel unwelcome as a white person in her own country. 

 

So starts a Twitter furore. La Grange, initially baffled by the backlash, defended herself to the Twittersphere.

 

Eventually, worn down by the online frenzy, she relented, offering the inexorable and obligatory Twitter apology: I didn’t mean that.

 

Yes you did. Just like CeeLo Green did.

 

I don't think La Grange was wrong to say what she did. I don't think she made a mistake to say it. And I certainly don't believe, for a second, that she suddenly no longer feels what she tweeted she felt that day. 

 

In a world full of political spin and duplicity, just when did we become so damn ungrateful for the truth anyway?

 

Because what was the real "lesson" Twitter taught CeeLo Green?

1) Don’t tweet what you really feel, or

2) Oops, it's actually not okay to have sex with unconscious women

 

I'm hoping for #2, but knowing what we do of human nature, I'm not optimistic.

 

And the real lesson the La Grange controversy's teaching the South African public?

1) How dare she tweet what she really feels! or

2) Let's consider what she said, what she meant, why she said it and what it reveals about broader South African society; let's discuss race, colonialism, privilege, redress, guilt and justice – openly and honestly

 

The plain fact is: Twitter's free speech is good for all of us – and we shouldn't be deprived of CeeLo Green's shocking ignorance or Zelda La Grange's shocking confession – the truth is too important for that.

 

As for Max du Preez, thank God there's still someone who knows what an apology's really for: when you're wrong. And you know it. And you mean it. 

 

Du Preez wrote a newspaper column, quoting a Supreme Court judge, saying Zuma had a corrupt relationship with his financial adviser, for which the newspaper subsequently apologised.

 

Du Preez meant exactly what he said. He wasn't wrong. And he knew it. So he refused to apologise and resigned instead.

 

And that's why, when Max du Preez does get it wrong – and he will, being human – and when he realises it honestly, as he will as an ethical person – he will apologise.

 

And it will actually mean something, unlike the ubiquitous, destructive and pointless modern aside that is the Twitter apology.

 

Gregory Paitaki is a PhD candidate in Media Studies at the University of Cape Town researching political cartoons in South Africa. Contact him with your candour at ohgender@gmail.com.