{"id":488,"date":"2017-10-24T21:42:06","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T01:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/?p=488"},"modified":"2021-04-19T16:01:05","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T20:01:05","slug":"celebrity-chef-john-besh-apologizes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/celebrity-chef-john-besh-apologizes\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity Chef John Besh Apologizes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Celebrity Chef John <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/food-drink\/2017\/10\/24\/celebrity-chef-john-besh-steps-down-from-besh-restaurant-group-amid-sexual-harassment-claims.html\">Besh stepped down <\/a>this week from the restaurant group he founded, amid a host of sexual harassment complaints naming him and other top men in his company, which employs more than one thousand people in New Orleans, San Antonio and Baltimore.<\/p>\n<p>Besh issued a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2017\/10\/24\/us\/john-besh-steps-down\/index.html\">statement in which he acknowledged an extra<\/a>-marital affair with an employee two years ago. The woman has filed a sexual harassment complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Besh referred to it as a \u201cconsensual relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;Since then I have been seeking to rebuild my marriage and come to terms with my reckless actions given the profound love I have for my wife, my boys and my Catholic faith. I also regret any harm this may have caused to my second family at the restaurant group, and sincerely apologize to anyone past and present who has worked for me who found my behavior as unacceptable as I do,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;I alone am entirely responsible for my moral failings. This is not the way the head of a company like ours should have acted, let alone a husband and father. But it should not taint our incredible team of more than 1,000 employees, nor undermine our unyielding commitment to treating everyone with respect and dignity, regardless of gender, race, age and sexual preference.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As an apology, this has some strengths, but overall, it misses the mark.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some strengths:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;I regret&#8230;&#8221;, &#8220;I apologize&#8221; &#8212; These words are essential to apology. Another along these lines would be &#8220;sorry.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI have been seeking to come to terms with my reckless actions\u201d \u2013 Taking responsibility<\/li>\n<li>\u201c\u2026 who found my behavior as unacceptable as I do\u201d \u2013 Willing to name his behavior as \u201cunacceptable\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI alone am entirely responsible\u201d \u2013 Not trying to foist blame on others, although this is undermined by his reference elsewhere to the affair being \u201cconsensual,\u201d since it\u2019s arguable whether a subordinate\u2019s sexual relationship with her boss is ever consensual.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cmy Catholic faith\u201d \u2013 Brave of him to acknowledge his faith given that, although many things divide Catholics, one thing they can all agree on is that marital infidelity is a sin.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Weaknesses:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cI regret any harm\u2026\u201d \u201cI apologize to anyone who\u2026\u201d &#8212; Like the words \u201cif,\u201d \u201cbut\u201d or \u201cmaybe,\u201d the word \u201cany\u201d is a red flag in an apology. Saying, \u201cI regret any harm\u201d implies that he has no idea whether his behavior harmed his staff. It\u2019s augmented by use of the word \u201cmay\u201d, as if he\u2019s uncertain whether it caused harm or not. He apologizes \u201cto anyone \u2026 who found [his] behavior unacceptable,\u201d implying that he suspects not everyone was offended by it. It would be more effective simply to say, \u201cI regret the harm this has caused \u2026\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cBut\u201d is a red flag in apologies, as <a href=\"http:\/\/peacemaker.net\/project\/seven-as-of-confession\/\">Peacemaker Ministries<\/a> has been warning for years. Usually what follows the \u201cbut\u201d is an explanation or an excuse. Here, he seems to be trying to remind his audience of all the good his company has done. But it\u2019s disingenuous; his behavior <em>does <\/em>\u201cundermine [the company\u2019s] unyielding commitment to treat everyone with respect and dignity.\u201d It turned out that commitment wasn\u2019t so unyielding after all, so it\u2019d be better if his apology didn\u2019t remind people of the lapse.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It sounds like John Besh is on his way towards repentance, and I pray for the sake of him and his family that he gets there. He\u2019s not there yet, but there&#8217;s hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Celebrity Chef John Besh stepped down this week from the restaurant group he founded, amid a host of sexual harassment complaints naming him and other top men in his company, which employs more than one thousand people in New Orleans, San Antonio and Baltimore. Besh issued a statement in which he acknowledged an extra-marital affair [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}