Quote:
Originally Posted by Logseman
The reaction of the publisher is indeed poor, granted, but... isn't the backlash excessive?
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The backlash is against the publisher's response, not the typo.
The *correct* response would've been something like,
"That's an awful typo, and we're very sorry it slipped through our proofreading process. We apologize to anyone who was offended; certainly, no decent cookbook should make anyone even *think* of cannibalism. We'll be reprinting the book with the typo fixed (after a new, extensive proofreading to make sure we didn't miss anything else), and offer refunds to anyone who'd prefer that."
The response of "why would anyone be offended by that?" implies that:
--of course, nobody would *first* think of murder--a very disturbing thought when looking over ideas for a nice meal--when they saw a mention of "freshly ground black people;"
--of course, black people would not react more strongly than white people to the notion that they exist to as ingredients rather than human beings;
--of course, nobody who buys this book has had any *actual* encounters with cannibalism, or traumatic abuse that comes close.
By claiming there was no reason to be offended, he comes across as callous and indifferent to real suffering, and unaware of the history of racial oppression and discrimination. And, of course, oblivious to the concept that, when you're pondering what dessert to make for the birthday party, you probably don't want a quick mental flash of dead bodies.
And it's not like it's hard to have a policy that says, "if you screwed up, say you're sorry; don't say that you think the people who noticed it are silly for being bothered." The publisher doesn't need to be on the cutting edge of social awareness or race politics to have a standard PR practice of "apologize without blaming the whistle-blowers."