I make mistakes.
I have been in this industry for almost 15 years. I have written close to 50k posts, hundreds of 1000s of social media posts, radio, TV, live events and interviews.
During that entire time, I only have a couple of rules. One that I would never say something publicly that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face. The second is if I make a mistake, I’d own up to it.
I am pretty clear with my thoughts, that is why in those 15 years, I have rarely had problems with people because they know I am not someone who is going to hide and I am going to give people a fair shake.
When I wrote that headline that Amanda Seals lied about what she said about Myron Rolle, I made a mistake because I based it off Rolle saying she accused him of harassment and then Seals saying she never did. Meaning Rolle was right and she was wrong, and therefore she admitted to the lie. Every story that had been written about Seals had included in the headline and within the story about her saying Rolle harrassed her.
After speaking to Van Lathan of TMZ and a representative of Seals it was bought to my attention that Seals herself never said she was harassed, but she was just relaying the stories from anonymous women she had spoken to who felt that Rolle had harassed them and had predatorial behavior. So, Rolle and others in media had got it wrong in that regard, which means it was an unintentional mistake on my part that I immediately corrected.
While the headline became a contentious point, my overall point has never changed with this story.
When is it appropriate to put out anonymous accusations even if you believe them when you don’t have any proof?
When Van offered me an opportunity to address the headline, but also what I thought was a much bigger issue to Ms. Seals directly, I jumped at the chance. I am always up for speaking directly to the subject of whatever I am talking about.
After explaining in detail how the headline came about and apologizing several times, I did my best to speak to the much more important point of making accusations without proof.
In my mind it doesn’t matter if you are a celebrity, a journalist or just a regular person working a 9-5 job in 2019 you can bring down someone’s world with merely an accusation on social media.
This is way bigger than Myron Rolle in the sense that we have to draw a line of when it is appropriate to make everything we hear offline public. As I tried to explain to Ms. Seals with a serious accusation, you can’t play the middle. If someone is truly dangerous, it doesn’t matter if they are a singer, plumber, famous actor or neurosurgeon they need to be taken off the streets and punished if they are committing crimes. If you don’t feel what people are telling you is a crime, then it is wildly irresponsible to label that person a predator. Because while you haven’t called the cops of them, the court of public opinion based on your words will stick to that person their entire career regardless if it is true or not. It is hard to get that label off you even if you are innocent.
If you feel strongly enough about a person to out them, you have to go all the way with, you can’t stop at 1-yard-line. I don’t think that is fair to anyone: not yourself, the person you are accusing or the alleged victims. By playing the middle of the road, everyone loses, and those perceptions of black men are allowed not just to affect the person you are accusing but all of us.
As you will see when you listen to the entire podcast, not once do I interrupt Ms. Seals (I am interrupted several times, but it is all good), I treat her with the utmost respect, and I use nothing but a calm tone throughout. This wasn’t a performance to me and I wasn’t going to Stephen A. the situation. I had a point and I was going to make rationally no matter how many times I had to repeat it.
Thanks to Van and Ms. Seals for their time.
You can now listen and make your own determinations on how you think it went. Once again I am never hard to find if anyone wants to have a talk.