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SEATTLE (AP) – Seattle indie rocker and podcaster John Roderick apologized for a story he told online about getting his daughter to spend six hours learning how to use a can opener.
The musician, most famous in the band The Long Winters, wrote on Twitter last weekend about refusing to open the can of beans to the 9-year-old because she was hungry and frustrated to the point of crying.
Roderick faced an uproar from people who described his actions as emotionally abusive. He initially defended himself, noting that six hours is a typical period between meals and that his son was fine. But as the criticism grew under the hashtag #BeanDad, he deleted his Twitter account.
He said on his website on Tuesday that it was a mistake and that he should have addressed criticism head-on. He wrote that he told the story badly – omitting that his wife was present, that there was a lot of laughter, as well as frustration, and that they had had a hearty breakfast and shared pistachios while she worked on the can.
He said it that way because this is his sarcastic and comical persona, and he hoped people would recognize it as a “little bit”, he said. His experience as a white, heterosexual, middle-class man who did not live in an abusive situation led him to misjudge the effect of his words, he said.
“A lot of the language I used reminded people very viscerally of the abuse they had suffered at the hands of my parents,” wrote Roderick. “The idea that I would withhold food from her, or force her to solve a puzzle while she cried, or hold her to the task for hours without a break, were all images of child abuse that affected many people deeply. Rereading my story, I can see what I did. “
“I was ignorant, insensitive to the message that my ‘pedantic father’ comic personality was indistinguishable from how abusive parents act, speak and think,” he added.
Roderick also apologized for using racist, anti-Semitic and other slander in tweets years ago, saying he did this ironically to mock these beliefs, but later realized that it was not his place to appropriate such terms.
“I continued to believe far beyond the point that I should know better that, being a modern intellectual from a diverse community, it was okay for me to play and slander in that context,” he wrote. “Was not.”
Some of Roderick’s friends and colleagues came to his defense, including “Jeopardy!” wiz Ken Jennings, who co-hosts the podcast “Omnibus” with Roderick and who temporarily starts hosting “Jeopardy!” Next Monday.
The founder of the Maximum Fun HQ podcast platform, which hosts Roderick’s “Friendly Fire” podcast, also defended him, but the platform suspended Roderick indefinitely without pay, the Seattle Times reported.
Another popular podcast, “My brother, my brother and me,” announced that they would no longer use Long Winters’ song “(It’s a) Departure” as their opening song.
Roderick said he was taking a hiatus from public life to let the lessons of the past few days assimilate.
“My language was not appropriate then or now and reflecting on it has been part of my continuing education as an adult who wants to be a good ally,” he said. “This education is continuous and this experience will have a profound effect on the way I conduct myself for the rest of my life.”