The Help 2: "I did not apologize!" Starring Jackie Clarkson

What continues to make this funny is Jackie's utter obliviousness and stubborn refusal at any point to stop and think that she might be wrong.


Photo by Karenapricot on Flickr

Even if we were in the mood to be charitable toward Jackie, which is difficult because it would require us to stop laughing long enough to breathe, we still have to point out just how easy it could have been for her to better handle this situation. All she had to do was say something like, "You're right. It's true that New Orleans in the mid 20th Century, like much of America, experienced a tremendous economic expansion, but we still had a long long way to go to make the benefits of that expansion available to everyone. Just like today we face these same kinds of challenges... blah blah"

And, again being charitable to Jackie, that probably wouldn't be too far off from what she would have liked to communicate. A statement like that would have clarified her "40s and 50s" remarks while also acknowledging the underlying reason why what she clearly believes is a misinterpretation of them would rub people the wrong way. Unfortunately she made it too difficult for us to tell just what her intentions were because she chose, instead, to root her rebuttal in an increasingly embarrassing appeal to #standing.

Rather than attempt to show she understood where her critics were coming from, she stubbornly whipped out just about every cliche from the Stereotypical Aging White Guilt Travel Purse she could grasp at from "My family once owned property in this neighborhood!" to "Some of my best friends are..." to "Haven't I always treated you so well?" It was so cringeworthy, it was like watching Steve Carrell's character in The Office address a "conference room meeting" on diversity. Hilarity ensues, but maybe you feel a little sorry for him. Maybe.

But there comes a point beyond which our sympathy will extend. When we arrive the next day at ”I’m sorry that there were a handful of people in the crowd that didn’t appreciate what I’ve done for them,” it's pretty obvious that someone isn't even trying.

The comment thread below The Lens account of events is most enlightening. It leads us to this Gambit article by Matt Davis on NORD published just last year where we find Jackie tacitly endorsing the concept of "Separate but Equal" which, you will recall, was pretty big in the 40s and 50s. (Clarkson's father was a NORD administrator back the good ole days of her exalted childhood.)

"It didn't matter if you were Uptown, downtown, rich or poor," Clarkson recalls. "You either volunteered, coached a team, or wrote a check. NORD was public and private, it was black and white — though separate — and it was athletic as well as artistic.

"My father never built a white playground without building a black playground," she adds.

That looks to me like Jackie is having trouble with more than just choosing the right words. It sounds more like she still doesn't, after 60 years, really agree that there was a problem in the first place. Which might explain better than anything why she's been less than pliable on the matter, even when others step in to speak for her.

Though Landrieu, upon recovering the microphone, said that Clarkson had apologized, it is unclear if she did so.

After Landrieu commends her for apologizing, she can be heard on video saying, “I didn’t apologize.”