Celebrity apologies usually come in two flavors: 1) I’m sorry you’re upset, and 2) I’m sorry I got caught (sub-category; I’m sorry you misunderstood). Owning personal responsibility is, depressingly, rare in this strata of humanity, but when Michael B. Jordan found himself the target of public outrage, he offered up a thoughtful apology the likes of which we rarely see from celebrities. After his GQ cover profile in which he discussed wanting “white roles” and an alleged snapchat in which he said #AllLivesMatter, the internet rained hellfire down on MBJ, spurring him to write an apology letter that was released through Essence magazine.

The original tweet claiming he snapchatted the hashtag (what world do we even live in anymore) is gone, but here’s a rundown of that kerfuffle. About it MBJ says, “I have never said, written, snapchatted, tweeted, Instagrammed or implied anything to the contrary. Any report that states otherwise is a complete fabrication.” I tend to believe MBJ’s assertion that he never said that and the alleged snapchat was fabricated, mostly because it’s a tweet containing a screenshot (which no longer exists in its original media) against MBJ actually being on the record in various venues advocating for increased awareness of human and civil rights issues within the black community. Maybe I’m having a naïve moment, but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt here.

Because he does own up to the weird sh*t he was talking with that “female” business in GQ. I specifically noted that the thing that bothered me most about his profile wasn’t the stuff he said about wanting “white roles”—which makes perfect sense, he wants to be considered alongside the likes of Ryan Gosling because race really isn’t a determining character factor for most roles—but the way he kept referring to women as “females” was off-putting to me. And he apologized, fully owning that “the word ‘female’ used in the manner that I did is dismissive and strips women of their humanity. It is a slang term that guys sometimes use to sound slick and cool coming up.” So, he was trying to sound like a hotshot and ended up sounding like an idiot and he knows it. Good.

Do you accept MBJ’s apology? I do.

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