Manhattan attorney Aaron Schlossberg’s life was forever changed on May 15, when a video of him threatening to call ICE on people speaking Spanish to each other went ultra-viral. Within hours, the Twitter Detective Agency answered Shaun King’s call to action and swiftly identified him by name and profession.
Several more racist rant videos surfaced, and a horrifying pattern quickly emerged: Schlossberg has a penchant for screaming profanities at people. After spending much of last Thursday literally running from cameras, Schlossberg vanished from the public eye just in time for a “Latin Party” hosted outside his million-dollar condo.
One week after the initial video’s events took place, Schlossberg resurfaced on Twitter, where he shared a ten-sentence “apology” for his bad behavior, and declared how not-racist he is.
Oh my. That’s what he came up with after a week of reflection? Really?
There’s a lot wrong with this “apology.” In a self-serving spin on “it’s not what you say, but how you say it,” Schlossberg doesn’t seem to be apologizing for the content of his rant and threats, but rather the volume of his voice in delivering them. Essentially, he implies that if he had remained calm and respectful, his hateful rants would have been totally acceptable behavior.
Schlossberg also fails to address whether myriad other videos of him screaming racist stuff at people that have since emerged also “fail to convey the real” him, citing only the May 15 video as inaccurate before insisting he’s not a racist.
There are so many other videos, though.
Willie Morris, who felt the wrath of Schlossberg in a 2016 confrontation on Fifth Avenue, isn’t buying the battered barrister’s mea culpa.
Morris said on Tuesday that Schlossberg, through his apology, appears to be trying "to save face."
"I believe he's upset he was caught multiple times being racist and that it's probably been very damaging for him," Morris told CNN.
Morris said Schlossberg will "be more careful about how he acts in public for a while" and that the lawyer should demonstrate his "change of heart" through "actions instead of blanket apologies."
Folks on Twitter were a little less formal in their response to the non-apology.
The New York Daily News notes that the tweet comes after another threat to Schlossberg’s career has emerged.
The apology comes the same day as a City Council Committee called for his disbarment.
Schlossberg has a repeated history "expressing racist, bigoted and hostile anti-immigrant sentiments in public," said a letter from the Council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus to Manhattan Appeals Court.
"This persistent display of bigotry is ample evidence that he cannot conduct himself in a professional capacity with regard to race," the letter adds.
Despite the incident occurring during his personal time, attorneys in New York can be disciplined for bad behavior outside of their professional duties, the letter points out.
Awww. Poor guy.