An apology can’t fix everything, and Benedict Cumberbatch seems to know that. “The damage is done,” he said in a statement to People magazine after receiving criticism for using the term “colored people” in an on-air interview with PBS’s Tavis Smiley.
But an apology can, at least, make a strong case that someone really is sorry. By signaling awareness of why what they did was wrong, of how it might have affected people, and how they will do better in the future, apologizers don’t quite erase their errors but do demonstrate that they see them as errors. Cumberbatch basically did all of those things in his statement:
不过，道歉至少能充分说明犯错之人确实心怀歉意。道歉者虽不能将他们犯的错一笔勾销，但通过表达自己意识到为什么这样做不对、知道自己给他人造成了伤害，并表示将来会如何改正，确实可以证明他们认识到了错误。而康伯巴奇在道歉声明中几乎都体现了这些内容：
I’m devastated to have caused offense by using this outmoded terminology. I offer my sincere apologies. I make no excuse for my being an idiot and know the damage is done. I can only hope this incident will highlight the need for correct usage of terminology that is accurate and inoffensive. The most shaming aspect of this for me is that I was talking about racial inequality in the performing arts in the U.K. and the need for rapid improvements in our industry when I used the term. […]
“用这种不恰当的术语冒犯到别人，我感到十分难过。对此，我表示诚挚的歉意。我不会为自己愚蠢的举动寻找借口。我知道伤害已经造成了。我只希望自己的这件事能够提醒大家要正确恰当地措辞，不要冒犯到别人。最令我羞愧的是，我当时正在讨论的就是英国演艺圈种族不平等的话题，自己却使用了这样不恰当的词。”
I feel the complete fool I am and while I am sorry to have offended people and to learn from my mistakes in such a public manner please be assured I have. I apologize again to anyone who I offended for this thoughtless use of inappropriate language about an issue which affects friends of mine and which I care about deeply.
“我感觉自己是一个彻彻底底的傻瓜。我很抱歉冒犯到了他人，对于在公共场合犯这样的错我很遗憾，请相信我会从中吸取教训。这件事影响了我非常在意的朋友。我在措辞时太过轻率，选择了不合适的词语，我再次向那些被我冒犯到的人表示歉意。”
His apology’s thoroughness wouldn`t be worth noting if most public figures’ mea culpas weren`t so shoddy. The Internet has countless lists of famous folks botching it, sometimes by passive-aggressively expressing remorse only for people’s offense instead of the action that caused it, or by trying to explain away the mistake.
若不是多数公众人物的认错都太过敷衍了事，康伯巴奇认真的道歉也不会如此引人注目。网上名人们拙劣的道歉数不胜数，他们有人只是对自己的冒犯消极自责，却只字不提造成这样后果的行为；另一些人的道歉则像是试图推卸责任的狡辩。
Apologies like these can actually make things worse. When Don Lemon basically asked a rape accuser why she didn`t bite Bill Cosby and then responded to backlash with, "If my question to her struck anyone as insensitive, I am sorry," it muddied the issue, implying that anyone who took issue with the question was overly touchy.
这样的道歉只能雪上加霜。唐•雷蒙（CNN主播）曾因为问一个遭到强奸的受害者为什么没有直接咬比尔•考斯比（强奸犯）一口而引起轩然大波。而他却说：“如果我的问题让谁觉得冷酷无情，那我表示抱歉。”这简直就是“倒打一耙”，仿佛暗指别人在这个问题上反应过度。
Cumberbatch does nearly walk into the chagrinned-white-person trope of referencing his non-white “friends,” but it’s not to excuse his own words—it’s to demonstrate awareness of why his mistake might matter. And it could seem a little self-serving for him to hope that the “incident will highlight the need for correct usage of terminology that is accurate and inoffensive,” but he`s actually correct to do so. The word “colored” was in popular usage not too long ago; it’s in the very name of the NAACP. Some people may not realize that it’s been largely phased out because of its racist lineage and because some people of color feel it dehumanizes them. The publicity around Cumberbatch`s slip-up could help remedy that in a small way.
在提及自己的非白人“朋友”时，康伯巴奇虽也为措辞不当表示悔恨不已，但这并不是为了给自己找借口，而是为了说明深知错误的严重后果。他表示希望自己的失言能够提醒大家，正确使用准确且无冒犯之意的词语是十分重要的。这也许听起来有点以自我为中心，但事实上，他说的不错。就在不久前，“有色人种”这个词还被广泛使用，它甚至出现在了美国全国有色人种协进会(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)的机构名称中。而现在，这个词已不再使用，因为它和种族主义有着历史渊源，并且令一些非白人感到受到了侮辱。但有些人可能还未意识到。而此次康伯巴奇的说错话受到了社会关注，这在某种程度上起到了纠正作用。
There’s another upside to this apology, in that it offers a reminder of how messy progress can be. In the Smiley interview, Cumberbatch was talking about the difficulties that nonwhite actors face in finding roles—an issue that he and a lot of other people think deserves more attention. So on one hand, you have a white man speaking out for racial equality; on the other, you have him employing a word that’s long helped enable inequality. All in all Cumberbatch said he’s sorry, probably in the best way anyone could hope for.
康伯巴奇的道歉的另一个积极作用，就是提醒了人们进步并非易事。在斯麦利的采访中，康伯巴奇谈到了非白人演员找角色的不易，这也是他和许多人都认为值得更多关注的问题。所以，一方面有一个白人站出来呼吁种族平等；而另一方面，他却用了一个长久以来助长种族歧视的词语。总而言之，康伯巴奇表达了他的歉意，也许还是以大家都希望的最好方式。