TV personality Geraldo Rivera ruffled a number of feathers last week when he publicly commented that Trayvon Martin’s hoodie was as much to blame for his death as his killer, George Zimmerman. After inserting his foot into his mouth, Rivera recently attempted an apology, but again inserted that same foot back into his mouth.
On March 27, Rivera took to Twitter to address a petition that called for him to apologize to the parents of Martin for his comments.
“Heard petition demands my apology to Trayvon’s parents. Save effort: I deeply apologize for any hurt I caused — that is not my goal or intent,” tweeted Rivera.
Later, Rivera emailed Politico to try to better explain himself.
“I apologize to anyone offended by what one prominent black conservative called my ‘very practical and potentially life-saving campaign urging black and Hispanic parents not to let their children go around wearing hoodies … by putting responsibility on what kids wear instead of how people react to them I have obscured the main point that someone shot and killed an unarmed teenager.”
Since his original comments, Rivera claims that he’s been “buried under an avalanche of rage and ridicule” and was even told by his son, Cruz, whom Rivera referred to as one of those “dark skinned kids” who shouldn’t wear hoodies, that he was ashamed of him.
“[M]y own family and friends believe [that] I have obscured or diverted attention from the principle fact, which is that an unarmed 17-year old was shot dead by a man who was never seriously investigated by local police. And if that is true, I apologize,” Rivera said on his radio show Tuesday morning.
Well, if that isn’t a half-hearted apology, then we don’t know what is and clearly Rivera doesn’t understand how his words could affect the way young black and Latino kids view themselves or the way they bolster the unfounded ideas that other people have about those kids.
Sadly, he’s not the only celebrity who’s made an apology fail. Check out some other apology failures below. –nicholas robinson
