Dingus of the Week: "My Actions Do Not Reflect Who I Am"

Yes, they do, sir.

This is the Dingus of the Week, the newsletter, where I make fun of someone or something in the news that was super dingusy. Then, I share some links, a drink, and a few good things.

This is the last regular DOtW for the year. And this is also your last day to vote for Dingus of the Year!

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Thomas L. Keon. Image from the Change.org petition calling for his resignation.

This week, during a Purdue Northwest commencement ceremony, Purdue Chancellor Thomas L. Keon, mocked Asian languages. One of the speakers, a radio host, James Dedelow, had commented that he sometimes used made-up languages with friends and family. Then, Keon stepped up to the microphone and issued a nonsensical string of sounds imitating a racist stereotype of Asian languages.

“That’s sort of my Asian version of his,” Keon said referring to Dedelow. People laughed. In the video, a professor in the background nods and smiles as if Keon has just said the thing he agrees with the most.

A video of Keon making his racist comments was posted to social media and sparked much-deserved backlash.

Sherrilyn Ifill, a former director-counsel of the NAACP tweeted: “The professor laughing and nodding next to the chancellor and the one laughing behind him – have they issued statements of remorse?

“What is going on at Purdue Northwest? … This is a question for the board of trustees.”

Sherrilyn Ifill @SIfill_

The professor laughing and nodding next to the Chancellor and the one laughing behind him - have they issued statements of remorse? What is going on at @PurdueNorthwest? Again, this is a question for the Board of Trustees of @LifeAtPurdue. https://t.co/ImMpzWjzyv

Sherrilyn Ifill @SIfill_

It’s the actual the CHANCELLOR of @PurdueNorthwest.The “apology”-“I meant no offense. We’re all human. I made a mistake” is utterly insufficient. Is the @purdue board satisfied w/this as an end to the matter when the Chancellor of Purdue NorthWest disgraces the school like this? https://t.co/j5RIuegOf6

Keon issued an apology, or what he called an apology, noting, “We are all human. I made a mistake, and I assure you I did not intend to be hurtful and my comments do not reflect my personal or our institutional values.”

I hate to break it to you, Thomas, but actually your comments do reflect your values. The very fact that you got up before a room full of people and made that remark without even thinking, with a giant grin on your face, indicates that you’ve said worse behind closed doors. 

The author Alex Chee, wrote on Twitter, “The sort of racist muttering Keon did is traditionally the precursor to an assault. The racist mutters it to see if you will react. Will you turn around, angrily attack them, will you ignore? If you ignore they often escalate. A trap is set either way.” And then, Chee linked to a petition started by a PNW student, calling for Keon’s resignation.

There is a whole genre of person who has most likely been saying racist/misogynistic/homophobic things their whole life with no concern or care about the impact around them. They get promoted, they have nice jobs, they attend DEI meetings and talk about the value of “intellectual diversity” over, you know, just hiring more Black women. And then, when the casual misogyny or racism they often say as a joke just a joke, finally meets resistance, this person becomes the aggrieved party. A person who has spent their whole life talking about accountability and worth ethic, suddenly asks for compassion and understanding. 

“We are all just human!” Declares the man who has dehumanized an entire ethnicity or gender with his comments.

And it’s not just an isolated incident. This week, sports columnist Jerry Sullivan, disparaged female sports fans on a sports podcast. When he got called out and lost his job, he lamented about all the women’s sports stories that would now go unnoticed without him.

Yes, oh god, what will we do without all the men noticing us? Help. Help. I have gone unperceived by a man for three hours. Do I even exist? If a woman exists in the woods without a man noticing her, does she even have boobs?

What you say does reflect your values. What you do is an indicator of what you believe. Jesus literally told you in the gospel of Luke that if a tree bears rotten fruit, it’s a rotten tree. If you say a racist thing, that does actually make you a racist.

Good luck with consequences, sir.

And Now For Something Good:

This week, the something good I am highlighting is Sanctuary Supply Depot, a mutual aid group in Minneapolis working to provide aid to houseless neighbors.  Their work focuses on providing food, shelter, and tools for survival for the houseless in one of the coldest states in the nation. 

I want to emphasize that the houseless deserve warmth and shelter and food simply because they are humans. And humans deserve love and dignity with no strings attached.

This week, I donated to Sanctuary Supply Depot in honor of my friends in the Twin Cities who love and support me. You can help out Sanctuary Supply Depot, by sending them money, or purchasing supplies, or donating your time if you live locally. 

Also a few more good things happened this week, the respect for marriage act was signed into law.

Rep. Taylor Small @TaylorSmallVT

We’re officially en-GAY-ged! 💍🏳️‍🌈 After @POTUS signed the #RespectForMarriageAct my partner of almost 4 years, Carsen, proposed to me on the South Lawn of the @WhiteHouse. I, of course, said YES and could not think of a more fitting way to celebrate this moment. #LoveIsLove

And unions continue to unionize.

Jessica Cobian @jessycobian22

Thank you @tmorello for standing in solidarity with academic workers ✊🏽🎸#FairUCNow @uaw2865 @UAWUCLA

What I Am Reading:

• This week, I read Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boyle. I loved it. If you are looking for a page-turning, engrossing read, that might actually radicalize you, read that.

• Cars are bad. Read all about it.

• Kyrsten Sinema sells her used gear on Facebook. And as someone who hasn’t had the time to sell my old patio furniture, when does she have the time?

• Read about what happens when schools kick cops out. Spoiler: Good things!

• Dorothy Pittman Hughes died this month. I read this wonderful obituary about her in Essence.

• Elon Musk began the week getting booed on stage in San Francisco. And he ended the week, by banning journalists who reported about him and then flouncing off Twitter spaces and then shutting them down completely. 

• Of course, Charlie Warzel, has a good take on Musk.

• I really loved Emma Spector’s take on the movie She Said and the journalist as folk hero. 

  Dirt: All the things She Said

• And on this newsletter, I wrote about making and breaking holiday traditions.

Making Magic in Times of Loss

What I Am Drinking:

I turn 40 on Monday. 40 years old. I cannot wait. I am having a birthday party for myself with the help of a dear friend who is generously catering the food. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to fling my whole self into a new decade. How even though my body is stiffer, makes more popping sounds, requires more kindness and regular maintenance, and has decided to prevent me from getting anything reasonably resembling a “good nights” sleep, I am elated to enter yet another decade of caring less, taking up more space, finding more freedom to do the things I want, and build the life I love.

My 30s brought the birth of my second child, my divorce, THREE BOOKS. Listen, I sold three books in that decade and published two. (The third comes out in 2024.) I got fired and built a newsletter empire. I bought a home and learned how to do small appliance repair. I was yelled at by Nazis and the Iowa GOP (but I repeat myself). The sitting president of the nation snarked at me. Alan Dershowitz called me fifth-rate. I got two dogs and kept my children and myself alive during a pandemic. I witnessed two large-scale natural disasters.  Quite a few men have said I made them nervous. What a decade. And into this new decade, I’m dragging with me my kids, my pets, this beautiful old house, my dreams, hopes, fears, and so many, many friends. I feel so grateful.

The other day while driving to clarinet lessons, the little girl in the carpool was asking how I became a writer. I was telling her about all the weird jobs I had to make money, and how it took so long to sell books and get here. I told her about working at magazines, writing blogs online for AOL and MSN and YourTango. I told her about running Twitter accounts for large pet-food brands and copy editing for a marketing company and writing marketing proposals. I was just trying to tell this girl that sometimes life is complicated and you can quit and change and be messy and fail. But as always, my daughter, who is 11, piped up and said, “If you think about it, it didn’t take you that long.”

“How do you figure?” I asked genuinely curious about what she was thinking.

“Well, if you take out all the time you spent having kids, being a housewife, and dad not letting you hire help for childcare, and all that stuff, it really didn’t take you long. And you are just getting started.”

I love that little mouthy broad.

So, all I am saying is that this weekend, please drink some whiskey in my honor. I’ll probably stick to wine, because I have to be up in the morning with kids.