New York Times stands by 'racist tweets' reporter

VorZakone

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The New York Times has defended a new member of its editorial board who wrote inflammatory tweets about white people.

The newspaper's announcement that it was hiring Sarah Jeong met an outpouring of online criticism after her old posts were unearthed.

In a statement, the Times said that Ms Jeong regrets her remarks and she had been responding to online abuse.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45052534

What does the Caf think about this?
 

Charlie Foley

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Washington Free Beacon writer Alex Griswold wrote: "If I ever tweeted something racist back in the day, that's only because people of that race were racist to me first. I regret it, and am now absolved."
 

Cheesy

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I dunno...on the one hand, I'm partly against the culture of pulling people up for stupid shite they've said in the past...but at the same time, anything you post openly and clearly for everyone to see on social media involves leaving yourself open for later criticism, and it's not as if it was that long ago.

I don't doubt that she's received a ton of abuse and has probably gotten a hard time, but saying she did it to 'counter-troll' strikes me as a fairly poor excuse for tweets that come across as being fairly nasty and malicious.

But at the same time, past mistakes shouldn't necessarily deny her the opportunity of future employment.
 

Charlie Foley

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I dunno...on the one hand, I'm partly against the culture of pulling people up for stupid shite they've said in the past...but at the same time, anything you post openly and clearly for everyone to see on social media involves leaving yourself open for later criticism, and it's not as if it was that long ago.

I don't doubt that she's received a ton of abuse and has probably gotten a hard time, but saying she did it to 'counter-troll' strikes me as a fairly poor excuse for tweets that come across as being fairly nasty and malicious.

But at the same time, past mistakes shouldn't necessarily deny her the opportunity of future employment.
time for the other half of the Twitter mob to go up in arms sadly
 

prateik

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The article says they fired someone earlier in the year for their previous tweets .
Unless it was a lot worse, they should treat it the same way..

Ms Jeong wrote in one tweet from July 2014: "Oh man it's kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men."

One online critic posted a selection of Ms Jeong's other tweets, which contain obscenities.

"Are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins," she said in December 2014.

The South Korea-born journalist, who was raised in the US, also used the hashtag "#CancelWhitePeople" and complained about "white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants".
Pretty stupid really .
Wouldn't be surprised if she was being racially abused.. but replying in kind isn't smart.

If the NYT are making an exception, she better be a great journalist and not some average blogger with a strong skewed opinion and the ability to churn out 2000 word articles .
 

2cents

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She's an idiot but if she's the right person for that particular job than that's all that really matters. Is anyone genuinely offended?
 

KirkDuyt

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I'm not a fan of the court of public opinion. Wasn't a fan of firing James Gunn over dumb twitter jokes and I wouldn't fire this woman over these dumb tweets.

Not helping the polarization by being great ammo for Trump's failing NYT rhetoric.

Her defense is fecking weak though. At least own up to being a fecking racist, because she clearly is.
 

VorZakone

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She's an idiot but if she's the right person for that particular job than that's all that really matters. Is anyone genuinely offended?
And here I thought the Caf was fiercely anti-racism.
 

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She's an idiot but if she's the right person for that particular job than that's all that really matters. Is anyone genuinely offended?
Not particularly bothered, especially after she issued the obligatory apology tweet where she made an attempt to explain herself. If however this were an unknown person or someone with even a trace of conservative views they would be far more likely to be kicked to the curb imo.
 

whatwha

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The article says they fired someone earlier in the year for their previous tweets .
Unless it was a lot worse, they should treat it the same way..



Pretty stupid really .
Wouldn't be surprised if she was being racially abused.. but replying in kind isn't smart.

If the NYT are making an exception, she better be a great journalist and not some average blogger with a strong skewed opinion and the ability to churn out 2000 word articles .
She's clearly racist.
 

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Seeing as I work somewhere with a social media policy, I don't need to have an opinion about it. Gone. Deservedly so. Stupid and ignorant should get what it deserves.
Her defenders are framing it as an alt-right campaign to get rid of her. Alt-right of course being anyone who objects to racist sounding tweets.
 

oneniltothearsenal

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Just because I am in a pedant mood : technically it can't be racism per se because "white" is not a race or ethnicity. So its technically just prejudice.
 

prateik

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She's clearly racist.
Quite likely.
There is a chance shes just not very bright and got some abuse, checked the twitter profile and responded in kind.. in anger.

Doesnt justify the tweets. No intention of defender her. I dont care..

If the best case is that she is stupid, then I wouldnt feel bad if she lost her job because of it. More important things to worry about.
 

Wibble

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There's an argument that you can't be racist against white people.
A shit argument.

Racism is however generally far less harmful when directed at white people because it doesn't disempower us in the same way.

Not sure that is a good enough justification to treat her differently from the racist bloke they fired. Maybe his abuse was far worse?
 
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Pscholes18

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Shes funny....if she was responding to other abusers/racists, I have no problem with it and Im a white.
 

VP

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You can be racist towards white folks - it's just harder to discriminate or offend white people using race. For instance, there is a big difference between calling someone a white prick vs a black prick. One is far more offensive and naturally will have far harsher implications.
 
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oneniltothearsenal

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Could the same argument be made with the words "black" or "brown"?
Yes. Its an outdated classification that never had scientific basis and is loaded with racial bias.

"According to Mukhopadhyay, Blumenbach went on to name four other “races,” each considered “physically and morally ‘degenerate’ forms of ‘God’s original creation.’” He categorized Africans, excluding light-skinned North Africans, as “Ethiopians” or “black.” He divided non-Caucasian Asians into two separate races: the “Mongolian” or “yellow” race of Japan and China, and the “Malayan” or “brown” race, which included Aboriginal Australians and Pacific Islanders. And he called Native Americans the “red” race.

Blumenbach’s system of racial classification was adopted in the United States to justify racial discrimination—particularly slavery. Popular race science and evolutionary theories generally posited that there were separate races, that differences in behavior were tied to skin color, and that there were scientific ways to measure race. One way racial differences were defined was through craniometrics, which measured skull size to determine the intelligence of each racial group. As you can imagine, this flawed application of the scientific method resulted in race scientists developing a flawed system of racial classification that ranked the five races from most primitive (black and brown races), to more advanced (the Asian races), to the most advanced (the white, or Caucasian, races). Even though the five-race topology was later disproven, “Caucasian” still has currency in the U.S.

One reason we keep using the term “Caucasian” is that the U.S. legal system made use of Blumenbach’s taxonomy. As early as 1790 the first naturalization law was passed, preventing foreigners who were not white from becoming citizens. But according to Mukhopadhyay, Blumenbach’s category of “Caucasian” posed a problem because his classification of white also included some North Africans, Armenians, Persians, Arabs, and North Indians. The definition of Caucasian had to be reinvented to focus the ideological category of whiteness on northern and western Europe. The term, even though its exact definition changed over time, was used to shape legal policy and the nature of our society...

The bottom line is that it is time for a modern—and accurate—terminology. The use of an outdated and disproven term that falsely purports to describe a separate race of people has no place in the U.S."

https://www.sapiens.org/column/race/caucasian-terminology-origin/
 

hobbers

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No doubt there are a few people around here crazy enough to think you can't be racist against white people. But if we're going to go down the old privilege route we should maybe consider the fact that she's an Asian American (or Asian living in America?) and hence in the most privileged category in America. Maybe she's just mad about having to get a higher GPA than her fellow white candidates to get into Berkeley.


Just because I am in a pedant mood : technically it can't be racism per se because "white" is not a race or ethnicity. So its technically just prejudice.
That is an impressively high level of pedantry. Although I do have the occasional pedantic thought whenever I hear about anti-Mexican/Hispanic/Latino prejudice in America being labelled as racism. And you could say the same for anti-Eastern European sentiment in Britain, which is clearly xenophobia and nothing to do with race.
 
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Ødegaard

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Comment from reddit:

Child: "But he made fun of me first!"

Teacher: "It doesn't matter, two wrongs don't make a right."

...

Adult Harvard grad: "But people with white skin made fun of me first so I retaliated against their entire race."

NYT: "Sounds legitimate to us, welcome to the editorial team!
 

Raoul

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No doubt there are a few people around here crazy enough to think you can't be racist against white people. But if we're going to go down the old privilege route we should maybe consider the fact that she's an Asian American (or Asian living in America?) and hence in the most privileged category in America. Maybe she's just mad about having to get a higher GPA than her fellow white candidates to get into Berkeley.
She did one better by graduating Harvard Law.
 

Nikhil

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No doubt there are a few people around here crazy enough to think you can't be racist against white people. But if we're going to go down the old privilege route we should maybe consider the fact that she's an Asian American (or Asian living in America?) and hence in the most privileged category in America. Maybe she's just mad about having to get a higher GPA than her fellow white candidates to get into Berkeley.
Asian Americans are the most privileged group in North America? I did read somewhere that Chinese and Indians earn a mean and median salary that is much higher than other communities. Also when it comes to the top universities such as Stanford, MIT and Ivy League there are significantly more of them with respect to their share of the population. I wouldn't call that privilege though. They work hard to become successful.