Gary Garrels, top curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, resigned after outrage from his colleagues over an IG post stating: “Don’t worry, we will definitely still continue to collect white artists.”

In an attempt to clarify his statement, Garrels sought to justify his comments citing concerns of “reverse racism”

Personally, I find the idea of “reverse discrimination” as a farce (it is a double negative!). But I find it hard to fathom that such an idea as violent. I highly doubt that Garrels threatened to designate non-white art as forbidden and deserving of fire.

But alas, free thought in an industry that glories in freedom of expression will not be tolerated. With Garrels’ resignation, he offered these words of apology.

I want to offer my personal and sincere apology to every one of you. I realized almost as soon as I used the term ‘reverse discrimination’ that this is an offensive term and was an extremely poor choice of words on my part. I am very sorry at how upsetting these words were to many staff

Garrels would further clarify his position stating that “true diversity and the fight for real equality is the important battle of our time.”