See also: Let’s all thank Sarah Jeong for showing us what liberals think of white people
The New York Times has provoked a firestorm with its hiring of Sarah Jeong as a member of its editorial board, despite apparently having checked her social media history and found explicitly hateful anti-white tweets in abundance. Following criticism of the hire, a tweet from “Communications,” presumably its corporate communications department, headed by Senior Vice President Eileen Murphy, tweeted out a justification that indicated they had reviewed her tweets and other social media messages:
Our statement in response to criticism of the hiring of Sarah Jeong. pic.twitter.com/WryIgbaoqg
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) August 2, 2018
So the Times disavows the racism, and its P.R. operation anonymously assures us that Ms. Jeong regrets her hateful words. They were satire, and she was responding to mean, racist people. This is precisely the rationale that others have offered to no avail, as Ace notes:
What is called the “alt-right” did post a lot of racist memes and tweets. Sometimes these were hardcore, inarguable racism; sometimes it was debatable what the intent was – was it just to provoke the “triggering” of easily-triggered Social Justice Warriors and Tumblrinas, or actual racism?
And, did it even matter what the intent was, if some of this stuff was hard to distinguish from seriously-intended racism?
Well, we know the position the New York Times took: If it even looks a little like racism, it’s racism, even if the intent is claimed to be, or even likely to be, satirical or trollish.
But now, the Times announces a new standard for its new racist Jeong: Trollishly racist stuff is okay if you’re just trollin’.
Oddly enough, Ms. Jeong herself has offered no apology. I can report that as an old white male, the type of person Ms. Jeong avers she enjoys torturing, I am worried about her using her megaphone at the Times to whip up hatred directed toward me exclusively based on my race and sex and the refusal of Ms. Jeong to apologize for the emotional pain she has inflicted on me.
And by the way, this picture of herself used by Ms. Jeong at https://sarahjeong.net/ sure looks like appropriation of a hair color that is not found among Asians:
Will Chamberlain gathered a slew of her hateful tweets and pointed out that Democrats define “racism” as a whites-only affair, which makes race-hatred of whites perfectly OK:
Democrats have redefined racism precisely so people like Sarah Jeong can say racist things and still get jobs at the New York Times. pic.twitter.com/ibjWFy5NLi
— Will Chamberlain ?? (@willchamberlain) August 2, 2018
The customary progressive argument is that “racism” can be exercised only by people with “power,” and by definition, only white people have power – for instance, Sam Thielman, who says he’s had bylines at the Guardian, the Daily Beast, Variety, and a slew of other MSM outlets.
anti-black sentiment and anti-white sentiment are not morally equivalent because the country wasn't founded 45 minutes ago and our long and complex history has generated systemic oppression of nonwhite people to the exclusive advantage of white people. Also Sarah Jeong is good.
— Sam Thielman (@samthielman) August 2, 2018
The brilliant Iowahawk cut through the BS and laid out the real power issue:
Q: how can you tell if a tweet is racist?
A: it depends, true racism can only come from a position of power
Q: how can you tell if it's from a position of power?
A: when the tweeter doesn't get fired for it— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 2, 2018
The double standard at the Times is illustrated by the paper’s unwillingness to forgive another person hired and then fired for her social media history. Robby Soave at Reason:
One wonders, however, why Jeong is allowed to come out of this unscathed when the same dispensation was not granted to Quinn Norton, who was asked to join the New York Times editorial board as a tech specialist last February and fired immediately after her ill-advised tweets were publicized. Norton had used an anti-black slur and an anti-gay slur (she claimed she belongs to the LGBT community, so this was in-group usage), and she was friends with the alt-right hacker weev (she claimed she did not share his pro-Nazi views and hoped she could persuade him to abandon them). When these facts came to light, The New York Times and Norton went their separate ways.
Iowahawk challenged the Times, asking not that Jeong be fired, but rather that Norton be rehired.
Instead of another sacrifice to the online mobs, maybe the NY Times could hire back the last person they threw off Mt. Problematic
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 2, 2018
So far, there is no indication that the Times is considering reversing its firing of Norton, thereby explicitly endorsing a double standard. Karl Notturno attacks this double standard as the issue going forward at American Greatness:
Conservatives are not upset about what James Gunn, Samantha Bee, or Sarah Jeong actually said or wrote; most view these comments as pathetic attempts at humor or otherwise carelessly made remarks that do not deserve severe repercussions. But they are upset at the leniency that the liberal media gives these figures while simultaneously attempting to destroy their right-leaning counterparts.
This tactic has worked for the Left quite well so far. They have destroyed many conservatives while keeping their allies unscathed. It’s time to change that. And given the amount of casual racism in leftist circles, it won’t be hard to fight back.
In fact, Jeong has cheered on the firing of others based on their social media posts, even mocking them.
tim hunt sad. tim hunt too sad to do science. twitter criticize him and he just start crying.
— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) June 14, 2015
Daniel Flynn, writing at American Spectator, invokes George Orwell’s famous satire of leftist double standards in Animal Farm with an article titled “Some racism is more equal than others.” That’s great if you are nonwhite, I guess. For those of us who can be vilified with no consequences, it is an unattractive proposition.
