The New York Times Hires a Racist

[Nightshade]

But it's ok because they regard someone like TopGun or Vander as cave-dwelling goblins beneath contempt based on their race.

Sarah Jeong claims she was 'counter-trolling' though most people would be fired or socially and professionally ostracized for their publicly racist tweets.

Jeong, a South Korean native, tweeted in November 2014: “Dumbass f–king white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.”

In another tweet she asks, “Are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins.”

In a third tweet, Jeong wrote: “Oh man, it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.”

Some took to Twitter to wonder if the Times ever bothered to check her social media background before hiring her.

The Times on Thursday insisted it was aware of the remarks and is standing by her and insisted her comments were reactions to vicious online bashing attacking her background.

https://nypost.com/2018/08/02/new-york- ... st-tweets/

[TheWhat]

Who cares? Don’t buy the newspaper if it bothers you. I want to know how Korea can produce such physically attractive women when they eat kimchi regularly. I wouldn’t feed that ★■◆● to my pig. GROSS

[Top Gun]

Old white people are factually ★■◆●ing terrible, so she's completely justified.

[Nightshade]

Old white people are factually ★■◆●ing terrible, so she's completely justified.

So you don't mind being a cave-dwelling goblin?

[Top Gun]

I crisp under direct sunlight so I blissfully stay in the shade. What's your excuse for being a complete troglodyte again?

[Vander]

I’m triggered.

[Ferno]

Old white people are factually ★■◆●ing terrible

This is true.

so she's completely justified.

this is supporting racist bull★■◆●.

[Tunnelcat]

White people are required to use sunblock products or get cancer. We're such a weak race.

[vision]

Thank you for your service.

[Nightshade]

I crisp under direct sunlight so I blissfully stay in the shade. What's your excuse for being a complete troglodyte again?

I'm rather tan for being a troglodyte. Get you some sun bro!

[Top Gun]

so she's completely justified.

this is supporting racist bull★■◆●.

Uh-huh. Just what position of privilege is she speaking from again?

[Nightshade]

Uh-huh. Just what position of privilege is she speaking from again?

So you're accepting of the ridiculous premise that certain people can never be racist no matter what racist acts or statements they make because they don't have "privilege."

What utter garbage. Anyone can be racist from someone with extreme wealth and power like Jeff Bezos down to some naked uncontacted tribesman in the Amazon. If you see someone else as beneath you because of some racial trait they possess- you ARE RACIST.

rac·ism
ˈrāˌsizəm/
noun

prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

synonyms: racial discrimination, racialism, racial prejudice, xenophobia, chauvinism, bigotry, casteism
the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
noun: racism
"theories of racism"

[Vander]

Triggered.

[Tunnelcat]

Oooooh, whoopee dips. Fox News hired a gay man, then Ailes told him to stay in the closet if he wanted to work there, then demoted him anyway.

http://gawker.com/how-fox-news-shoved-s ... 1569504867

[Top Gun]

Resorting to quoting a dictionary definition is the surest sign you don't have a leg to stand on in an argument.

Did I say anywhere that she couldn't be racist? No. If she is genuinely racist, do I think her racism carries any substantial weight? Not really. The most damaging aspect of racism, the thing that makes it so vile, is when it is directed from a position of power towards those who lack that power. If someone came up to me on the street and called me a "cracker," I'd probably laugh at them, at least internally. That word carries no historical significance to me, has no impact at all. It cannot damage me in the least. But if I were to turn around and call someone the N-word, that would mean so much more. That word has centuries' worth of disgusting history attached to it, and my using it could only act as a severe put-down on the receiving end. Power matters, position matters, context matters, and yes, "privilege" matters. There are no easy answers, no black-and-white declarations. A middle-class heterosexual white male doesn't have much that can hurt him when it comes to his background. The same cannot be said for a member of a historically-marginalized group.

So is the author racist towards white people? Maybe, maybe not. But given that white people have spent the last four hundred years on this continent royally ★■◆●ing over anyone who doesn't look like them (and even many who do), I can't exactly fault her if she is.

[Ferno]

Uh-huh. Just what position of privilege is she speaking from again?

Don't excuse her shitty behaviour. To be truly progressive, you have to call out racism wherever it rears its head. If you don't, you're accepting it. Racism knows no colour. If you support racism from certain people but not others, you're not going forwards -- you're going backwards.

[Vander]

To be truly progressive, you have to call out racism wherever it rears its head

Isn't that what this writer did? She called out Andrew Sullivan mocking his "lets hear both sides" position? Are there more tweets that I haven't seen? I've only seen the 3 or so tweets responding to Sullivan. Or is this another exercise in the demands of rebutting bad faith arguments?

Anyways, I'm down with #WhiteGenocide

[Top Gun]

Don't excuse her shitty behaviour. To be truly progressive, you have to call out racism wherever it rears its head. If you don't, you're accepting it. Racism knows no colour. If you support racism from certain people but not others, you're not going forwards -- you're going backwards.

Nice work blithely ignoring my entire elaborated point!

[Nightshade]

Nice work blithely ignoring my entire elaborated point!

You're basically saying two wrongs make a right. Your great great grandfather killed a number of my native American ancestors so I guess you won't blame me for shooting your dad. Really?

[Top Gun]

Nice work completely misinterpreting my entire elaborated point!

[Ferno]

Don't excuse her shitty behaviour. To be truly progressive, you have to call out racism wherever it rears its head. If you don't, you're accepting it. Racism knows no colour. If you support racism from certain people but not others, you're not going forwards -- you're going backwards.

Nice work blithely ignoring my entire elaborated point!

Oh no, I understood your point completely. It was, in a nutshell "she's allowed to say this because she's a minority and doesn't have white privilege"

The red herring you tossed out wasn't unnoticed. Be smarter next time. Again: excusing racist behaviour because the person is non-white is unacceptable.

[Vander]

Nah. History and context matter.

[Top Gun]

Exactly. There is very little black-and-white (lol) in this realm. I don't condone her statements, nor do I condemn them.

[MatDef4]

An 'old white' person. Yep that's me. American USMC veteran of hell for the sake of others white and NOT WHITE.
Leftist to my soul in spite of being the DRAFT-AGE woodstock generation.
Fascist? NEVER NEMAS!
I was taught that authoritarianism is WRONG, wrong out of the "right", as wrong out of the "left".

Grew up in a sundown town when that made people hide over night.
Too much hate in that environment for me and all like me.
Fought hate and "superiority of race" since 1967 and before that,
when too many around me saw college students going to Mississippi to register NON-WHITE voters as interfering and 'asking for trouble'!
Excuse the hell outta me but I was taught to keep my beloved Republic doing proper things and protest the Govt. doin' bad deeds - like backstopping the KKK with the FBI 'undercover'.
I judge not by age, race, forebears or any other characteristic of a body,
I examine who you are on the inside where all are PINK and Bleed red or black when wounded.
What kind of spirit do you carry?
Do NOT Hate except to hate the hate.
Allow no one to harm another.
Semper Fi
All American citizens are my brothers and sisters.

[Ferno]

Nah. History and context matter.

Well, clearly. It goes without saying.

[Tunnelcat]

An 'old white' person. Yep that's me. American USMC veteran of hell for the sake of others white and NOT WHITE.
Leftist to my soul in spite of being the DRAFT-AGE woodstock generation.
Fascist? NEVER NEMAS!
I was taught that authoritarianism is WRONG, wrong out of the "right", as wrong out of the "left".

Grew up in a sundown town when that made people hide over night.
Too much hate in that environment for me and all like me.
Fought hate and "superiority of race" since 1967 and before that,
when too many around me saw college students going to Mississippi to register NON-WHITE voters as interfering and 'asking for trouble'!
Excuse the hell outta me but I was taught to keep my beloved Republic doing proper things and protest the Govt. doin' bad deeds - like backstopping the KKK with the FBI 'undercover'.
I judge not by age, race, forebears or any other characteristic of a body,
I examine who you are on the inside where all are PINK and Bleed red or black when wounded.
What kind of spirit do you carry?
Do NOT Hate except to hate the hate.
Allow no one to harm another.
Semper Fi
All American citizens are my brothers and sisters.

Good for you, especially for being a vet. Most white old farts (I'm a white old fart woman, so that gives me license to say that) from the Woodstock generation went conservative ages ago. A few of us stayed true to our liberal roots and never sold out.

[Nightshade]

I was taught that authoritarianism is WRONG, wrong out of the "right", as wrong out of the "left".

The left wants to institute a tyranny. Just look at how they are banning and "deplatforming" speech they don't agree with.

The left is attacking both the 1st and 2nd Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

[Vander]

When I am king, you will be first against the wall.

[Top Gun]

The left wants to institute a tyranny. Just look at how they are banning and "deplatforming" speech they don't agree with.

The left is attacking both the 1st and 2nd Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Literal Nazis march the streets of US cities and you whimper about "the left." What a tool.

[Vander]

Seriously. We have a lying erratic adulation addicted reality game show host sitting atop what has got to be the single most corrupt administration in the nations history, stoking the worst impulses of human nature to his well armed base. His goon squad is literally kidnapping children.

But yeah, keep worrying about whether or not Milo can speak at P.C.U.

[Tunnelcat]

NS, you whine about liberals violating the 1st and 2nd Amendments. How about our president in flagrant violation of the Emoluments Clause.

“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Trump is openly taking money from a Saudi Prince (read foreigner) every time the Prince and his entourage stay at Trump's New York City Trump Tower. It's pretty much an actual straight up violation of that clause and you know he ain't renting rooms to those ultra rich boys for free. Meanwhile, no liberal group has succeeded in restricting anyone's gun rights or stopping the vile hate speech coming from the mouths of your heroes like the Patriot Prayer and The Proud Boys hate groups, so quit yer whining. All those conservative liberal bashers are just that, a bunch of fearmongering whiners with no concrete ideas to improve things except go on the attack against liberals as their main platform. Eventually, the Republican Party will self-implode because of that giant vacuum of emptiness that's left inside.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sa ... 86f4a19333

[TheWhat]

Interesting opinion from one of her new co-workers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/opin ... ction.html

[Tunnelcat]

That's probably as accurate of a piece about her as a person that we're going to get from anyone right now.

[vision]

No one here knows the context of the controversy. There is a Reddit thread that explains part of it. While racist language is not appropriate and Jeong has apologized, the tweets in question are cut out of a larger conversation. Context matters, and that's why she still has a job. She's not getting a pass because she is an Asian woman, she's getting a second chance because the evidence shows this controversy is the byproduct of a medium that is poor for this style of satire.

There is a whole other conversation to be had about the "Medium is the Message," but those who are aware of Marshall McLuhan's work already know this.

[Ferno]

The first step in being a racist is to view others who don't share your skin colour as less than human, and calling people 'goblins' is a step in that direction. You've essentially reduced a people down to a non-existant fantasy race whose only purpose is to torment and rob people. And thinking it's okay to target a person because it's used in a certain context is just trying to excuse that bad behaviour.

[Vander]

I'm offended that the noble goblins have been compared to white people. #EndGoblinGenocide

[Ferno]

Break out the goblin deck and show them how goblins party! #mtggoblinlove

[vision]

.. thinking it's okay to target a person because it's used in a certain context is just trying to excuse that bad behaviour.

I don't excuse it and it's not Ok, but well written satire occasionally uses juxtaposition to great effect. It's difficult to do successfully, and I think this was a failure, but again, part of that is the medium she chose to write in.

[Ferno]

I'm happy to see that from you, Vision.

[vision]

I'm happy to see that from you, Vision.

Thanks. I don't think Jeong is a racist and I don't think she should lose her job. She's a writer, and in this case her writing was really, really shitty. The New York Times should definitely be more critical of her future work and Jeong should take what she's learned and elevate her writing. There is no place for racism in today's world, and mock racism has lost it's effectiveness on a population void of restraint and critical thinking skills.