If he said some Canadian guy or some English guy then no one would have gave a shit. Sometimes people do not carry their own opinions, they carry the opinion that has been shoved down their throats for years through some carefully constructed methods for some other entities agenda.
There is no question that people have had their opinion manipulated. But that doesn't matter in the slightest (for this topic at least). If they feel offended, they are only going to have a stronger opinion towards the entity shoving it down their throat. It literally only makes the problem worse, something said entity knows, and everyone who disregards the feelings of the person who feels victimized only makes it worse for themselves as they give more power to said entity. You literally are playing right into their hand.
So if someone gets offended at something, how should people treat them? You could say with empathy but I can't empathise with such a person as when I get offended at something I try and work out if me being offended is justified logically, in this case its not. Apologising would only justify you believing the statement to be racist, which is exactly what they want. You think Atlas should apologise?
No.
Social media makes things 100x more difficult, because in real life people are more open to rational conversation. And if they aren't, I would start to think they were coming from a political angle rather than how they actually feel.
If you start the dialogue making it a point that you want to understand their point of view, it drastically changes the conversation. Most people instead just try and explain their own side without bothering to listen to what the other person has to say. So as soon as one party puts their foot down and bothers to listen the other person will not feel like you're attacking them and then is more likely to actually listen to your point of view.
But in this situation and with social media in general, you cannot win. You defend your statement, you look bad even if your logic is 100% spot on - people are fantastic at twisting words. If you apologize then you are admitting that what you did was racist and you legitimize the claim that it is. This will most likely be brought up later and used against you.
If I was him I would 100% ignore it. People's attention spans are so short. It will only take a few more days for someone to make a statement that people find even more offensive, and then they will forget all about him.
"Being offended" is how abusive manipulators control others. These people are usually physically abusive towards their mates, quick to anger, and almost always want to "solve their problems" with violence. It's a textbook example of sociopathy, and it usually calls everyone else crazy...
There's really no point in talking about it... Broken minds of this nature are being manufactured at an alarming rate. Over half the population are mental defectives, but they're the majority, so they'll never vote to hold themselves accountable...