how to apologize better. Apologizing is kind of like listening - there is always room for improvement, the need for it never ends, and the more you do it, the more it builds on itself, so that each experience lends something to the next. 

Yes, we have made some important apologies in the past, but one in particular stands out because it was a double apology - meaning there was something in apology #1 for which we had to issue apology #2. Has this every happened to you?

One thing we noticed about this experience is that the apology itself - especially a second apology - felt meaningless if it was not accompanied by a parallel action. That action could be immediate (like replacing a broken or lost item that you borrowed, or donating to a concurrent cause) or it could be down the road (like committing to change your behavior, do it differently next time, or spend energy and time in expanding your awareness). 

It's no secret that we love Brené Brown's podcast, Unlocking Us, and her interview with Sonya Renee Taylor, author of The Body is Not an Apology, was the best yet. In addition to making us laugh pretty hard along with Brené and Sonya in the first ten minutes, we loved their conversation around attribution, which is an act of acknowledgement or recognition of a person's creation or achievement. 

Sonya shared a quandary around attribution that resonated: the question of, 'Does it matter that the world knows I said this? Or does it matter that what was said seems to matter to people?'

We empathize with that second-guessing, a conversation we've had with ourselves before, and we were inspired by Brené's opposing response, which felt like the epitome of courageous self-advocacy: to stand up and say, 'I said that', when someone else tries to take ownership of your work.

This is similar to what Robin Wall Kimmerer - writer, professor, and creator of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment - did when she emailed us years ago to share that some of our Words of Wisdom were quotes from her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, and that the lack of attribution not only rendered her, the writer, invisible, but also failed the reader or viewer by leaving them without context to deepen their understanding of the quote. 

Robin could not have been more clear or gracious in her correspondence. We recognized our error, and responded with an apology for that oversight...but we also asked her if she would kindly point out which other WOW quotes were hers, so that we could be sure we got them all. That was the part for which, in recent months, we realized a second apology was imperative. In the first place, we didn't do the work we should have done in attributing all of the quotes used. In the second place, we should never have asked Robin to go back and do additional work. It was, in fact, already an additional tax on her time and energy when she took the initiative to reach out about those quotes.

But our second apology needed more. More than updating the links on our Words of Wisdom page to reach the source, or source information, for the quote, and more than sharing deeper context for Words of Wisdom via our Instagram page. We found ourselves pondering Robin's words once more: 'Give a gift in reciprocity for that which you have taken.'

An apology can be a repair, and it can be an opportunity to complete the cycle of having taken something. The other side of taking is giving, as Robin reminds us in her interview with Krista Tippet on the On Being podcast: "We are all bound by a covenant of reciprocity...in the dance of the giveaway, remember that the earth is a gift we must pass on, just as it came to us..." In this particular instance, we believe that Braiding Sweetgrass is a book that needs to be spread out further into the world, and we at GFJ are capable of playing a part in that: 

We are giving away ten copies of a special hardcover edition of Braiding Sweetgrass. To enter, send us an email with your name and email address - and if you feel inspired to share, a favorite, fully accredited quote from a Black, Indigenous, or other person of color (which we might just turn into our next Word of Wisdom).

The deadline for entry is NOON on Indigenous Peoples' Day, next Monday, October 12. We hope to hear from you.

In food, justice, and food justice, 

Dor + Tay


photo by Mary Rosch