#cecilgate

The post was one of a series, and so, by itself it was stripped of important context and careful wording that had been included in earlier posts on the subject. As a result, several people took offense to the vague wording, and were quick to let me know what they thought. To those of you who were civil about it, I thank you.

I wish to apologize for the fact that negative feelings were spread. Above all, this I despise - and am genuinely sorry for. This is not a perfect world, but I try to be the nicest and least offensive I can be, always.

I maintain, however, that despite my vague wording, my intent was not (meant) to be offensive. I was not referring to factors of educated speech and slang to differentiate voices, nor was I suggesting it was impossible for PoC - African Americans specifically - to speak in an educated manner. That’s preposterous.

In my life, with all the people I’ve met, it has been my experience that African Americans have a sort of je ne sais quoi, a deeper timbre perhaps, to their voices. The voice actor for this character did not, to my ears, have this je ne sais quoi to his voice. I believe it is because he is a white man.

This is all I meant, and nothing more.

I realize that the world is not full of clones. People have varying voices and these don’t always coincide with what other members of their race or region sound like. And that’s fine, that’s wonderful. It simply sounded off to me, personally.

One person raised a valid point that being a PoC myself does not excuse me from saying “horribly offensive" things. They are correct. However, I do not believe what I said was “horribly offensive". At worst I believe it was “slightly problematic". And so I express sorrow for making people upset.

That is never a thing I want to do.