THE ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE HAD AN INTERN SEND HATEBREED A FORM APOLOGY
Last week, The Anti-Defamation League’s Lonnie Nasatir wrote an op-ed for CNN in which Hatebreed were incorrectly identified as a white supremacist band, presumably because they’re called “Hatebreed,” they have an album entitled Supremacy that has cover art which I guess looks kinda Nazish*, and CNN employs these clowns as fact checkers. They later corrected their error by adding a statement to the bottom of the piece in which they said that “CNN regrets the error,” which sounds as though it were written by someone named Horace who married a girl named Mitzi and walks around his house in a smoking jacket with a pipe and has a stick permanently embedded deep, deep in his anus.
But hey’s it’s all good, because here comes an ADL intern to supply Hatebreed with this sincerely sincere apology letter:
I mean come ON. Speaking as someone who has to make seven to ten apologies a week just to keep my neighbors from showing up at my door with pitchforks and torches, I can tell you that it really does not take very long to write an apology that sounds like you’re actually sorry for your mistake. I mean, in the first two sentences of this letter alone, there are three pieces of information that the members of Hatebreed absolutely did NOT need:
- That their band is called Hatebreed.
- That this letter is regarding an opinion piece for CNN. (As opposed to what, the opinion piece they did for The Onion in which Hatebreed were accidentally identified as racists?)
- That they should not have been mentioned.
These pieces of information have been included, I’m guessing, because they make the letter look a little longer.
Here’s a version of the letter which would not have induced cynicism on my part:
Gentlemen:
On behalf of The Anti-Defamation League, please accept my apology for my most regrettable error. You will probably not be surprised to learn that I don’t actually know anything about heavy metal or hardcore music. I made some very foolish assumptions about your band based on some very superficial elements. I feel like a total idiot, and I can’t even imagine what kind of stress I’ve created for you both as a collective and as individuals. I am so, so sorry for my mistake.
You’ve probably seen by now that CNN has added a note to the bottom of my piece apologizing for the error. If there is anything else I can do to make this right, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Lonnie Nasatir
There. My version is shorter, and it reads as though a human being wrote it. And for the record, it took me about twenty seconds to compose. So, like I said — come ON.
In other news, Hatebreed have a Jewish lawyer. Good to know.
-AR
*”Nazish” is a word, right?
