I think there is a sense that authors seem to sometimes apologize too quickly if they're accused of a particular misdemeanor. Janine Cummings was hugely accused of cultural appropriation because she wasn't herself Mexican. And after she said that was the mistake, her publishers didn't back her up. The real mistakes come and transparent cowardice is not so much on the authorial, but on the publishing level. What's needed in this circumstance is balls -- literal or figurative.