Lemony Snicket apologizes for watermelon joke about black writer at National Book Awards

[Siegehammer]

From coverage of yesterday’s National Book Awards ceremony:

The children’s author Daniel Handler has apologized for an “ill-conceived” joke he made about the black American writer Jacqueline Woodson while hosting the National Book Awards.

When Woodson collected her prize for young people’s literature, Handler, who writes as Lemony Snicket, joked about her being allergic to watermelon.

“My job at last night’s National Book Awards #NBAwards was to shine a light on tremendous writers, including Jacqueline Woodson and not to overshadow their achievements with my own ill-conceived attempts at humor. I clearly failed, and I’m sorry,” Handler said on Twitter.

I can’t even with this.

 

[Mintaka]

Writers are not the most socially ept people. Award ceremonies are social.

There’s a long history of writers making witty, inclusive jokes at award ceremonies, so that everybody there feels good.

There’s a long history of Extreeeeeemely Liberal writers at award ceremonies making jokes intended to be jokes about racism or misogyny being bad, which then turn out to make the writer sound racist or misogynist.

There’s also a long history of writers drinking too much at award ceremonies and doing embarrassing/sexist things on purpose, because they seem funny at the time.

The safe thing is just to get up, get/give the award, say thank you, and sit down, but everybody wants award ceremonies to be witty and entertaining. So embarrassing things will always happen at writer award ceremonies.