Philanthropy in the Age of Social Media, Permanent Memory, and the Inability of Forgiveness

Two recent stories about the power of social media and its impact on social media raise difficult questions.  We recently posted about the moral obligations of charities to return or disdain donations from donors who were proven, after the donation, to have engaged in dastardly deeds unrelated to the monies donated.  Similar but not quite the same type of stories have been reported about two guys recently thought as “good guys” who donated lots of money but then were exposed as having said something stupid —  not just stupid but explicitly racist in one instance, and implicitly racist in another.  The by now predictable result was that their altruistic behaviors were recast as “filthy rags” and the benefactors quickly disassociated themselves lets they be tainted by the donors’ recent and past mistakes.   

In the first, Dr. Ed Meek donated $5.3 million dollars to the University of Mississippi School of Journalism.  The donation was so significant that the School was renamed after him.  By the time the controversy arose, the endowment had earned more than another million dollars.  But then one evening, apparently after one of Ole Miss rare wins, Ole Miss students were out and about partying and someone took the photos shown in one of Mr. Meek’s Twitter posts.  I wanted to insert the posts but apparently Twitter won’t let me.

The picture is of two young African American women out in the “square” partying with the rest of the students, many of who were white and no doubt many of the white women were similarly clad.  I mention women only because we unfairly demonize women for being gorgeous, and we certainly don’t hold men to the same standard, but that is a different subject.  Side note:  As a 19 year old undergrad, I see no problem.  But as a 58 year old dad of four daughters I probably would yank their parental scholarship, that’s just me!  But that’s beside the point.  The message of the tweet, at least to many people was that the loss of “innocent fun” after a football game is directly attributable to scantily clad African American women, and perhaps their African American male admirers in the background.  Dr. Meek wasn’t explicit but the message was not lost.  University administration, having become aware of the tweet, immediately went into crisis communication mode and the Chancellor issued his own tweet, no doubt after much roundtable discussion with his cabinet:

I don’t suggest the Chancellor Vitter was pandering to the mob; subsequent news reports confirmed his view that many people thought the tweet unfairly focused on the minority of African Americans, and African American women in particular, as the source of whatever dying gentility is occurring in the land of “Hoddy Toddy.”  Anyway, the rest is history.  After weeks and months of vilification, justifiable or not, Dr. Meek asked that his donation be returned and his name be removed from the School of Journalism.  Whatever the merits, its seems a sad ending, particularly as I read about Dr. Meek’s efforts during the civil rights era when he encouraged James Meredith not to give up his fight to integrate Ol Miss. 

In a story that unfolded just last week, a college kid from Iowa State held up a sign during ESPN College Game day that basically said “send money for Busch Light!”

People thought the sign was funny and lighthearted and even started sending him money.  Eventually, and with the help of matching funds from Anheuser-Busch, Carson King — the sign’s maker — received more than $1 million dollars, all of which (except for the matching grant), he could have spent on tuition or just beer and pizza.  There was no fraud in the inducement so he could have just pocketed the money.  Instead he donated all the money to the Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital.  But then a reporter from the Des Moines Register called to ask him about some explicitly offensive posts he made when he was 16 years old (about 8 years ago).  “The exact content of the offensive posts have not been released (though social media never forgets and I am sure they can be found), but the Des Moines Register reports that the posts compared black mothers to gorillas and make light of black people killed in the holocaust.”  Soon enough, even before the Register published the story (the reporter had given him a heads up and asked him about the posts), Carson issued a public policy.  Anheuser-Busch quickly disassociated itself from Carson and, although the money already raised will go to the Hospital, the matter will end with Carson having to live with the infamy generated by his 8 year old posts.

I do not yet have the moral certitude to pontificate on all of this.  I remember my father saying he would never forgive Governor George Wallace even after Wallace made a complete 180 and denounced his segregationist past.  I didn’t understand it at the time, but then I had not lived through the hate and fear my father had, growing up in Memphis Tennessee.  The title of this post includes “the inability of forgiveness.”  I have to admit to some sympathy for Dr. Meek and Carson King, but then, who is to say what irredeemable harm was set in motion by their words?

Darryll K. Jones