This quote could be applied to so many current participants in this thread it’s not even funny anymore.
From a white man - sack the fuck up, you lily-livered snowflakes. “But but but she said something MEAN!” (in response to some horrible attacks) is just about the greatest example of white fragility I’ve ever experienced.
Do I sound like this? I really try quite hard to not sound like this. If I do… I’m very, very sorry.
I hadn’t heard of that. That’s disgusting. To be fair, it’s some random alt roght lunatic who probably isn’t writing for the New York Times, and this thread isn’t about that, but… Yeah. Fucking disgusting.
“Your mother is a whore” is “mean”. “We should castrate the men of your skin color” generally gets called something else.
It’s unsettling. But this example of disturbing utterances by a right-winger has very little to do with the discussion at hand; it’s a whataboutery.
There is also a differential in power between some guy at a rally and a soon-to-be member of the editorial board of The New York Times.
If that guy had been named for Jeong’s job, and his t-shirt would have become public knowledge all of a sudden, I’d expect The Times to reconsider. And be utterly embarrassed for doing such a piss-poor job in background research.
And speaking of their research abilities:
This is likely old news for most of you, but I just read about another tech journalist, Quinn Norton, who had been hired by The Times as a member of its editorial board earlier this year and was fired immediately after some tweets (considered racist) were unearthed that caused some uproar.
There are some differences between the cases; Quinn was called by some voices an apologist toward white supremacist racists, and I can see why, though I don’t see evidence that she is one.
But in both cases, The Times failed to do a proper background check, the tweets were discovered by outside sources, politically motivated voices demanded their dismissal, and both journalists apologized for not making their intent clearer.
The outcome, however, is different.
I’m not sure how equivalent these two situations actually are, but, seriously, shouldn’t tech journalists be experts in understanding the effects of words uttered in a digital medium?
Both of them were quite naive.
If you’re a tech journalist, as Jeong is, you shouldn’t sound like a college girl chatting with your friends privately in a café; she is clearly intelligent and tech-savvy, but her knowledge doesn’t translate into understanding. Not yet. Or maybe it does by now.
I’m sorry, but you’re leaving information out. You’re leaving out the relevant information that the writer in question has since realized that this was a bad idea and apologized for it. She has repudiated her actions. She has not performed this action since becoming part of that outlet. You are discussing this like it is a current, ongoing problem. It is not.
I care about racism. I can definitely see the argument that what she said is racist, and regardless of the word you use, I 100% agree it’s not helpful. But so does she. She has said it was a bad idea–that it only only alienates people rather than helping. So she no longer does this. We we know this is true because of how far back they had to go to find her doing this bad thing.
So, if the racism is the problem, then that problem is over and dealt with. There is nothing served by having her be fired. This isn’t a situation where you can just fire her for symbolism, because there are other factors at play (i.e., nuance). She is an outspoken activist who was attacked to try and silence her activism.
Remember, this whole thing started because the alt-right was trying to attack anyone who is widely known to be anti-racist. They are trying to take down the strongest voices by finding things in their past and pretending that they are still a problem today. The same thing happened with James Gunn. And, yes, even Trevor Noah–though Noah’s own response made that worse.
So, if we continue to argue that she shouldn’t have her job, we are giving the alt-right what they want. Even if we don’t get her fired, it still creates division. It gives the alt-right position the illusion of legitimacy, because other people are saying it. That’s the point: they are all about propaganda, not actual ideology.
Plus, it goes against something important in any fight against wrongdoing: the idea of reform. It’s important that we allow people to repudiate their past actions. While it’s important not to accept fake apologies, it’s also important to know how to detect the real ones: by the person’s actions. Forgiveness is important, as, without that, we lose the impetus to change. Why stop being racist if everyone is going to treat you like a racist forever?
I’m with you on this. I find her apology sufficient and I don’t think she should be fired. I think most right-wing medoa personalities talking about this are at best hypocrites who have done worse and at worst being completely disingenuous and unprincipled.
…But I’m also in various Leftbook groups, as well as this forum, and see various lefties arguing that she did absolutely nothing wrong. That these tweets are totally innocent and innocuous.
And it’s like… Guys… They really aren’t.
I don’t care if whitey has all the power, calls for genocide are not okay. It’s not funny, it’s not cute, and there is no easier way to alienate “white people” as a group! Yes, it’s obviously not the same as a neo-nazi “joking” about an ethnic cleansing of African-American people, but that’s a crazy low bar to clear!
My point here is not “she should be fired” or “we should reject her apology”. It’s just “we should recognize that it was, in fact, wrong.”
Why the hell would you quote from that conservative trash of a site?
It’s even easy to see the technique being used: Briefly mention the reality that the vast majority have said that her comments weren’t racist because of context, whether satire or attacking specific people. Then inflate the minority view that where some people say it isn’t wrong to say those things anyways. And, of course, feel free to take them out of context to do so.
Look at the Tweets. Only one of them actually argues that what is being said wasn’t racist. The others simply point out why such racist comments might not have come from actual racist people. Even in finding quotes, that’s the best they can do.
Then we have the actual thread here. Correct me if I’m wrong, Banquet Bear, but I do not read you as saying that the comments in isolation are not racist, but that the context makes it okay. And that she herself is not racist. So even you aren’t arguing what the article says you are.
So where is this vast group of liberals who justify the concluding paragraph? What justifies the actual message of the article that there is some wide group of people who think that anti-white racism doesn’t exist?
Don’t think I didn’t also notice the conflation of this incident with the Twitter incidents of the past which have been either about current tweets or ongoing racism that was not repudiated. But I already covered that conflation in a previous post. Just note that this site isn’t above trying to support the alt-right.
I endorse both quotes above. She appreciates that she made herself look like she was doing exactly what she was criticizing, and has corrected herself.
Sorry, but cannot agree with this. There is such a thing as judgment based on context and circumstance – time, place, manner, ignorance/knowledge, prior record, intent, effect. Because of that I have been an opponent of Zero-Tolerance policies for a long time and of Net-shame culture as it has arisen. (That said I am also a bit skeptical of the concept gaining footing in Europe of having “the right to be forgotten”, either. Sometimes it ***is ***important to know what were you up to.)
Because missing the context of one tweet aside, it’s a really good take, one that nearly perfectly mirrors my own.
They’re all trying to either excuse it or explain why it isn’t problematic. And the NRO article takes aim squarely at that opinion - an opinion that is indisputably very common in left-wing circles.
And so on and so forth. Within leftist and progressive circles, the belief that you cannot be racist towards white people is quite wide-spread.
Not sure how much it matters, but I totally agree with this. Sweet Jumping Jesus, I agree with BigT on something.
I’m having trouble locating the “context” of the seemingly racist tweets that make it unreasonable to criticize the tweets and call for her ouster. I keep reading that she was parodying something but the few tweet chains I have seen do not seem to support this.
And do we apply the same concept of reform and forgiveness to conservatives who have said offensive racist things in the past?
Or are they not entitled to it because they haven’t turned full circle and become BLM activists?
How about apolitical white athletes who said racist and bigoted stuff while they were still in their 20s.
Pretty much, yes - you don’t get forgiveness if you persist in being wrong.
Well, obviously because I thought it was a well written piece. So long as I know enough about the source to know that it’s sincere, I try to judge people’s ideas on their merits. Should we feel such a compulsion to signal our ideological purity that we must reject the idea that any nominal conservative could ever write anything of value? In any event, I appreciate that contrary to your initial sentiments you did read it and critique it.
Oh really, so then why did the NYT fire Quinn Norton for a similar situation all the way back in February this year?
If they want to keep Sarah Jeong on the editorial board and she doesn’t do it again, that’s fine, but let’s not pretend that they would of have been as equally understanding if the person was not a POC, that’s why people who aren’t conservative shills or members of the alt-right are mad about it.
Assuming that’s true, which for the purposes of this post I am happy to do, it changes little: the correct time to inveigh against the NYT would have been back in February of this year.
In other words, if they are inconsistent, attack the time their inconsistency led them to the wrong choice, and not the time their inconsistency resulted in the correct course.
From your first link:
*here he referenced a HuffPo article
So it seems to me, you are missing that they are using a more scholarly version of the word “racism”.
Indeed. As I’ve noted several times throughout the thread. I’m certainly not arguing for her to be fired, nor is David French. To the contrary, she seems to be one of the few on the Left who are actually thinking objectively enough to concede that something that comes out of the mouth of a POC might actually be wrong.
What’s troubling is those who insist that she has nothing to apologize for, and that this kind of divisive racist rhetoric (whether satire or not) is okay. Apparently now it’s all about intent and context. Yet all progressives know that with real ingrained racist bias it’s the impact of what we say and do that’s paramount, regardless of intent or context. Sarah Jeong seems to be one of the few on the left who is intelligent enough to realize (and as you say, she came to this conclusion well before this furore started) that it’s hypocritical and counterproductive to claim that this standard should only apply to white people.
The dominant narrative on the Left comes perilously close to sounding like we should be treating marginalized groups with intellectual kid gloves, that POC of color have been so damaged by historical prejudice that the poor delicate things can’t think clearly, so of course we can’t hold POC to the same standards of discourse as privileged white people. That we just want them to hear their anger and frustration, not debate ideas.
I think the difference in outcomes is for two reasons: 1) the NYT felt they made a mistake with Norton and decided not to make the same mistake this time, and 2) they were aware of Jeong’s tweets but were taken by surprise by Norton’s tweets (which I believe is something they explicitly said), which led them to make a (perhaps hasty) decision wrt Norton.
Debate the link on the merits of the content and argument and don’t commit the fallacy of trashing it merely because it’s from a source you do not like.