Clarence Page, 73, columnist, Chicago Tribune

Page, the 1989 Pulitzer Prize winner for Commentary, is a columnist syndicated nationally by Tribune Media Services and a member of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board. He is also a regular contributor of essays to “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” and has been a regular on “The McLaughlin Group,” “Nightline,” as well as other news panel programs.

Since she shows no signs of intent to become a repeat offender, I believe Alexi McCammond deserves a second chance.

Yes, I believe her three tweets in question were offensive and childish, whether for public or private conversations—and nothing these days seems to be more public than a tweet.

I was also disturbed personally as an African American, like Ms. McCammond, that she was so insensitive and offensive toward Asian Americans. As a matter of simple decency, we don’t help ourselves by demeaning other people, regardless of race or ethnicity.

However, in judging the content of her character by the content of her tweets, I cannot help but remember that she was 17 at the time, the same age at which I entered journalism as a freelancing high school student. It would be hypocritical of me to claim that, even for an exceptionally bright 17-year-old, bad judgement in the moment is an uncommon event. 

To those who say “sorry” isn’t enough, I say, let those who are without sin and have no regrets about anything they ever said or did—or tweeted—as a teenager cast the first stones.

McCammond is now 27. I’m a lot older than that. I came into newsrooms in the wake of the 1960s riots that led to diversity. A lot of us—white and “colored,” as many still said—were apprehensive about the new diversity. We all had a lot to learn about each other and a lot of mistakes were made, some funnier than others. But long story short, we learned to get along. Most importantly, we learned how to be sensitive to each other’s points of view and passed on those lessons to our audiences. Ms. McCammond made a mistake with her tweets long ago. To her credit, she has apologized—twice.

A lot has been said and written about “cancel culture” surrounding this episode. My larger concern is how her resignation shows the larger devaluing of apology in our culture as a gateway to two increasingly rare commodities: forgiveness and redemption.