Ani DiFranco Issues a Real Apology for Plantation Event

Thanks to Ani DiFranco, it’s only the second day of 2014 and we’ve already got an apology for a non-apology. Crazy, right?

Today, the folk singer posted a fresh, seemingly sincere apology on her Facebook page after she cancelled her upcoming writers retreat at a Louisiana slave plantation and caught hell online because her initial apology wasn’t so great. Here are Ani’s new, words:

everyone,

it has taken me a few days but i have been thinking and feeling very intensely and i would like to say i am sincerely sorry. it is obvious to me now that you were right; all those who said we can’t in good conscience go to that place and support it or look past for one moment what it deeply represents. i needed a wake up call and you gave it to me.
it was a great oversight on my part to not request a change of venue immediately from the promoter. you tried to tell me about that oversight and i wasn’t available to you. i’m sorry for that too.
know that i am digging deeper.

-ani

OK. I do believe that change is possible and I’m also from the school of “when people show you who they are, believe them” — so we shall see Ms. DiFranco’s next moves. Meanwhile, Dr. Brittney Cooper over at Salon wrote my favorite sentence of the whole DiFranco debate:

No doubt, Ani discovered this week, that social media is no country for white women’s foolishness on race. Unfortunately for her, she chose to launch this retreat at the same time that another unfortunate white feminist soul launched a twitter campaign called #stopblamingwhitewomenweneedunity. And after a year of looking at Miley Cyrus’ non-twerking ass, everyone has had enough. …

Ani DiFranco’s retreat brought out the righteous ire and indignation of Black folks and she couldn’t deal. She couldn’t recognize that “our pain” is not “her pain.” But to put it like Jesse Jackson might, if we wanna deal and we wanna heal then we have got to get real.

Maybe DiFranco can grab her guitar and carve out a new jam to battle white privilege along with patriarchy? Just a thought.