even if you abstract away from fame, i think if you really look into the incident it's one of those things where 1) yes, it's good for people to own and name the racist shit they've thought and done, not hide, and 2) it's perverse to make that heroic, 3) it's cool if ppl he hurt don't forgive him.
to put it another way, it's important for white people to not pile on individual white people for some racist shit *when the pile on is used to hide (consciously or not) one's own racism*, and there can be growth, learning, healing there. Black people don't need to hear about that *at all* though.
(same thing for basically every relationship of violent privilege; non-queer queer "allies" roasting transphobes/homophobes but not interrogating how their own behavior harms queer ppl around them, men championing women; the list is long)
(final ramble follow up: men gloating about how awesome and feminist they are to women MIGHT end up getting them laid, but explaining and living feminism around other men might be a bit more helpful! [obviously women noticing a man's feminism isn't bad, but it doesn't demand a parade])
I get and am with you on what you’re saying, fwiw. You’re talking a lot more broad than I intended. I was surprised when I saw him sort of take the hits in public & thought ‘that’s different’ The original thing was about he & Pam A., which I don’t really care about anyway
Oh I don’t have anything in whether people forgive him. I was afraid it’d read like that. I just never really see people try in public to be contrite and show they’d changed or learned. That’s really all, and seemed like people hadn’t caught it