Why Gordon Beattie’s apology missed the mark
ALL publicity is good publicity, right? Well, some maxims don’t age well. Neither does this recent tweet from Gordon Beattie: “If we’re not making the news, we’re in the news at Beattie Communications.”
Mr Beattie wrote a post earlier this week on the social media platform Linkedin that has subsequently led to his resignation from the board of the company he founded, a prominent and successful communications firm.
Some further unfortunate foreshadowing from his February social media output: “We all get brickbats thrown at us from time to time – especially on social media.
“Use the bricks that others throw at you to fuel your success.”
The metaphorical bricks thrown at Mr Beattie, or, as he was styled on Radio Scotland yesterday morning, the “permatanned” PR supremo, have knocked him straight off his perch. Sticks and stones may not break any bones, but words hurt and it was the wild misapplication of words that led him to consider his position.
“At Beattie Communications, we don’t hire blacks, gays or Catholics,” he said, in a clear attempt at provocation designed to grab attention.
“We hire talented people and we don’t care about the colour of their skin, sexual orientation or religion.” You see what he did there? He’s trying to say that Beattie Communications is an equal opportunities employer that welcomes every creed and colour so long as they get the job done.
Yet while trying to demonstrate the open-mindedness and forward thinking, progressive nature of his company, Mr Beattie was left facing charges of being homophobic, racist and tone deaf.
As Mr Beattie said sorry, the company’s chief executive was quick to point out she believes her boss to have not a
“prejudiced bone in his body”.
For the firm itself, its shown a masterclass in reactive PR. Apologise, fully and swiftly. When that fails, have someone fall on their sword.
That old line about any publicity being positive is attributed to Phineas T Barnum. There’s an analogy there – showmen and circuses – but the idea of blanket succès de scandale is too lacking in nuance these days to be true – in our current climate, sometimes bad publicity is enough to end a career. The notion hasn’t aged well.
Nor has the idea underpinning Mr Beattie’s social media post.
There will be plenty who read it and couldn’t spot the offence. Isn’t it a positive to say that your firm does not discriminate against employees? Isn’t it a good thing to promote equal opportunities?
Isn’t it good to be colour blind? Certainly, it’s not such a great deal of time since “I don’t see colour” was the progressive line. I remember taking a training course about 10 years ago that set out why “not seeing colour” was actually a negative, regressive mindset. It was fairly new to many on the course but, 10 years is a long time and it seems as though it hardly needs said that the understanding of these issues has evolved.
We now have a mainstream understanding of hierarchies and how privilege and power work to elevate some people while holding others back.
It is vital to see colour, because without acknowledging the privilege of white people over other groups, we can’t correct that imbalance.
It’s also important to watch your language – “blacks” is dehumanising.
We must see how religious belief is discriminated against because we can’t correct that discrimination unless it is acknowledged.
It’s interesting, too, that Mr Beattie chose “Catholic” for his post and not “Jewish” or “Muslim”. The latter two, he likely understood, would cause obvious outrage, while he expected “Catholic” might get in under the wire.
We must acknowledge that gay people are still marginalised and discriminated against because, again, accepting an issue is the only way towards repairing it. “Gays”, again, is reductive and outdated.
The problem is, I imagine Mr Beattie well knows this and yet he carried on regardless. It was not just the message, but the messenger.
That a white, middle aged, middle class male thought he could use derogatory language about minority groups to promote his businesses exacerbates the problem.
Understanding of language and its impact is constantly evolving and that evolution can cause even established, commonly used phrases to start to turn fetid. Barrington Reeves, founder of Black Lives Matters Scotland and the Black Scottish Business Fund, described Mr Beattie’s post as “tone deaf”.
But “tone deaf” itself, as an expression, is falling out of favour – along with “blind spot”, “falling on deaf ears”, being “crippled” by something, or uses of mental health-related terms such as “bonkers” or “insane”.
The argument is made that these phrases are ableist – they attach pejorative connotations to disability. Perhaps you’re nodding along, perhaps you’re thinking this is utter stuff and nonsense.
Lots of people find this hard to keep up with. They warn of woke culture, snowflakes and cancel culture. “You can’t say anything these days without causing offence,” they cry.
I have some sympathy with this. We need to be able to debate these issues without being accused of prejudice.
But debates about language, power and privilege have hardly been secret or low-key in recent years.
It jarred earlier this week to hear the First Minister asked to apologise for the behaviour of her predecessor, a woman being asked to apologise for the behaviour of a man, because generally we accept now that women must not be held responsible for the poor behaviour of men.
Equally it jars to hear a business owner suggest that privilege plays no part in hiring because generally we accept the role of privilege in hindering equality.
It is not credible that the head of an international PR consultancy would be unaware of such debates, or the potency of the terms he used. Mr Beattie has apologised for the “offence caused”, a classic non-apology. But he either knew what he was doing, in which case his lack of judgment meant he had to go, or he didn’t, in which case it is his incompetence that sealed his fate.
A white, middle aged, middle class male thought he could use derogatory language
Read more: Catriona Stewart appears in The Herald every Tuesday and Friday