This article from Christianity Today caught my eye: Speaking Up for Asian Americans: How a Christian book’s racially insensitive content led to a demonstration of true reconciliation. An interview with the Rev. Soong-Chan Rah.
When confronted with evidence we have offended others, human nature is to become defensive, to blame the other for misunderstanding, to explain what we “really meant”, perhaps extend our irritability to larger cultural problems, i.e. blaming “political correctness” run amok.
When the Rev. Soong-Chan Rah first brought up the issue of offense to Youth Specialties he may have experienced something similar to the above, but then things began to change.
I started getting e-mails back. Initially, I got an e-mail from the Skit Guys that was not necessarily a positive response. We went back and forth with e-mail and a few phone calls. We went through a whole bunch of discussion. To their credit, both the Skit Guys and the president of Youth Specialties saw it was not just a mistake, but a very significant offense. They eventually made drastic, significant measures to counteract it.
Then, Zondervan did something extraordinary; they not only apologized, they backed up their apology with action.
Eventually, both Mark Oestreicher, president of Youth Specialties, and the Skit Guys issued public apologies. Oestreicher called the character in the skit a “horribly, inexcusably, and unquestionably racist” portrayal of Asian Americans, pointing to an underlying “systemic racism” within the organization for okaying the skit’s publication.
Zondervan also took the extraordinary steps of destroying every copy of Skits That Teach left in stock, revising and republishing the book without the Chinese delivery man skit, and offering to replace purchased copies with the re-released version.
I think customer service is rare among corporations these days. Apologizing, destroying stock, issuing a revised book
And that’s how it should be done.
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Dad taught me that right is right, regardless. What everyone did was right to do, after the publishing of the book with the wrongful stuff in it.
It’s interesting that it’s interesting .. that someone stepped up and did the right thing, without regard to pride or cost. That’s a sad commentary on society (as if it needs another sad commentary).
Bob,
You, unfortunately, are a dying breed. My cynical belief is that people/corporations are more likely to engage in spin control and risk management than doing the right thing.