Writing from Substack is not much of a step up.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:38 AM on September 15 [7 favorites]

Writing from Substack is not much of a step up.

This is a sincere question - what are the alternatives, then, if Substack is verboten because of Nazi platforming and MSM is shutting the doors on them because they're controlled by fascists?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:58 AM on September 15 [26 favorites]

Thanks for this. How awful. I enjoyed her.

The specifics here ¡ª fired for repeating the shocking words of another person ¡ª remind me of a couple of minor news items from my school district in which school personnel of color were fired or disciplined for repeating the N word after a student had said it to them, in each case as part of the process of trying to resolve the original conflict. It might make a cynic think zero tolerance policies aren¡¯t written in good faith.

I wonder how the journalists who decided to stay with the Post this spring, saying that they didn¡¯t want to leave until they saw evidence that the new policies were damaging the institution in practice, are feeling now.
posted by eirias at 9:01 AM on September 15 [27 favorites]

Racism and Charlie Kirk hagiography. Way to double down on getting facts wrong, Washington Post!
posted by surlyben at 9:03 AM on September 15 [10 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos: "Writing from Substack is not much of a step up.

This is a sincere question - what are the alternatives, then, if Substack is verboten because of Nazi platforming and MSM is shutting the doors on them because they're controlled by fascists?"

Ghost.
beeHiiv.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 9:05 AM on September 15 [6 favorites]

Ghost.
beeHiiv.

What are those?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:05 AM on September 15 [13 favorites]

Ghost and Beehiiv are alternative newsletter/publishing platforms. Buttondown is another.
posted by ropeladder at 9:16 AM on September 15 [17 favorites]

I hope she sues the SOBs. She'll lose, but discovery would be fun.

As much as we slag the NY Times for its bothsides-isms and blind eye on Gaza and active attacks on the LGBTQ community, it's worth noting that the paper published this column, "Charlie Kirk Didn't Shy Away From Who He Was. We Shouldn't, Either," from Jamelle Bouie. (gift link)

While the Post fired Attiah for a putting single, brief, accurate quote on social media.
posted by martin q blank at 9:18 AM on September 15 [25 favorites]

We covered Substack in exhaustive detail here very recently, and don't need to immediately derail every post by rehashing that.
posted by Klipspringer at 9:19 AM on September 15 [41 favorites]

Re-segregation is one of their primary goals. And they are well on their way to accomplishing it. Massive job losses by Black Women, completely offset by while male hiring.

Might be nice of the 'institutions' including the national dems gave a shit. Too busy helping plan the Charlie Kirk statue in the Capital replacing the MLK one I guess.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:23 AM on September 15 [10 favorites]

Wow. Not surprising, but despicable nonetheless.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 9:29 AM on September 15 [3 favorites]

I could understand a backlash if columnists were digging up a single contentious quote to bash a dead celeb with -- if someone had a long career marred by a single statement or something like that -- but it's fucking dishonest to refuse to cite the things that Kirk said on the regular. I doubt you could pick a month in the last five years that he *didn't* say something horrible and divisive.

I wish we still subscribed to WaPo so we could cancel our subscription again.
posted by jzb at 9:29 AM on September 15 [20 favorites]

remember when people said we were hysterical for making comparisons with Nazi Germany in the 1930s

but go ahead, Godwin me to death
posted by Didymus at 9:40 AM on September 15 [21 favorites]

Didymus: "but go ahead, Godwin me to death"

I try to bear in mind what Godwin has said about Trump:

"[W]hen people draw parallels between Donald Trump¡¯s 2024 candidacy and Hitler¡¯s progression from fringe figure to Great Dictator, we aren¡¯t joking. Those of us who hope to preserve our democratic institutions need to underscore the resemblance before we enter the twilight of American democracy."

But I shan't link to the quote directly. Because it was in the Washington Post. You know, in the before times.
posted by deeker at 9:45 AM on September 15 [14 favorites]

According to Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo. "On X over the last few days, countless numbers of high-profile right-wing accounts¡¯ feeds are made up almost entirely of screen grabs of random people¡¯s reactions to Kirk¡¯s murder and demands that they be fired from their jobs. In many cases the demands are heeded and then that fact is triumphantly posted as well."

I'm beginning to think Kirk's murder is becoming a burning of the Reichstag moment.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:27 AM on September 15 [12 favorites]

@[email protected]: The free speech activist who built a list of professors he worked to get fired for their speech must be celebrated for his support of free speech, and anyone who quotes his speech accurately in context will be fired and/or face state punishment by the champions of free speech, do I have that right?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:46 AM on September 15 [40 favorites]

what are the alternatives
My perspective has widened since leaving the (getting rather fascist) bubble that is the US. Are non-English publications a viable alternative? I've been reading the Volkskrant in Dutch, but there's Le Monde, and there are English language publications over here too that cater to ex-pats. I wonder if getting outside the national borders is the only large-scale option now.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 10:56 AM on September 15 [4 favorites]

I think all you can do is to read news from a cross-section of sources, because even the better ones will have biases, blind spots, things they will/won't focus on because of their primary audience, etc.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:00 AM on September 15 [5 favorites]

Sorry, not trying to doomer. But we are losing and losing badly. True believers are supercharging the fascism, xenophobia, hatred of 'others' effort + the Palantir lead program to track and harm those people who don't get in line is proceeding rapidly (ie bringing China's social controls to America). The oligarchs are on this team and they continue unencumbered on their march to own everything.

A strong, united and effective opposition, doing everything they reasonably can to fight this, well, it has a fighting change. Right now the formal opposition is for the most part ineffectual with some outlying (Pritzker, looking at you). The 'Institutions' needed to fight back are either PE owned or falling in line.

Our best (last) hope is that the massive amounts of people who do NOT buy into the descent into this fascism can be heard, and marshaled into that type of opposition.
posted by WatTylerJr at 11:04 AM on September 15 [8 favorites]

922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a: "Writing from Substack is not much of a step up."

This specific framing feels like threadshitting. I'm not flagging; I think people should be free to continue to note that Substack is run by assholes, but I am going to very strenuously object to the notion that what happened Attiah is roughly equivalent to her decision to host on Substack.
posted by 99_ at 11:14 AM on September 15 [34 favorites]

It is curious that quoting this dead person is seen as offensive. It's as if MAGA know that they are wrong.
posted by mumimor at 11:16 AM on September 15 [7 favorites]

> Eh, I disagree. It's super disheartening when you see good writers from the left on Substack.
posted by snwod at 11:18 AM on September 15 [3 favorites]

It's super disheartening when you see good writers from the left on Substack.

Morally disheartening, but it may be a necessary temporary devil's bargain - it's far more of a visible alternative than are Ghost or beehiv (both of which I had to scroll upthread just now to remind myself of their names).

It strikes me that it may be wisest to triage the problem at the moment; you're correct that it's not great what Substack is doing, but it's even worse that journalists who might actually do their jobs properly are being fired from their platforms altogether and we're losing a valuable window on current events as a result. Those who have turned to Substack are doing so out of a sense of mission - Substack is one of the better-known platforms, so that's where they're going.

Shunning Karen Attiah because she went to Substack after she was fired from WaPo strikes me as trying to address your eyebrow eczema at a moment when your hair is also on fire. They're both problems, but one can take a bit of a backseat until you've addressed the more urgent matter.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:32 AM on September 15 [27 favorites]

What's wild is I keep seeing Kirk apologists sharing a meme of the "full" quote he gave about empathy, usually accompanied by some kind of "SEE?!!? In context, it sounds entirely different."

And friends: it does not sound one fucking iota better in the longer iteration.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:33 AM on September 15 [21 favorites]

strikes me as trying to address your eyebrow eczema at a moment when your hair is also on fire

if this is purely yours I hope you take it out on occasion while sipping fine brandy and hold it up and kind of admire it from different directions, as a person should
posted by Didymus at 11:39 AM on September 15 [17 favorites]

Well, we all knew the Post was going to veer hard right as soon as Bezos bought it, but damn that's happening quicker and more openly than I'd expected even after his "free markets" demand.

The Post's purge of Black voices fits the style of the Trump regime perfectly. I presume that next will be LGBT voices. No minority can be allowed to hold any sort of position, valor, or even to speak.

It's not merely the Fascist's refusal to permit dissent, but something more elemental to Fascism: their urge to eradicate anyone who isn't "us".

And in Trump's America "us" is cis het white Christian men. Cis het white Christian women are barely tolerated. Everyone else is going to be hounded out of public life if possible, silenced when they can, and erased from history and public memory.

The fact that Trump's SecDef is firing every Black person or woman he can, and renaming everything that was named after a Black person or woman, is not a coincidence. The existence of prominant "them" is intolerable to Fascists, only "us" is permitted to have valor, honor, or even recognition.

Bezos is a Trump minion, he is promoting the Trump agenda.

Now, more than ever, we need to find ways to replatform those the Trump regime tries to silence.

I would pay good money to subscribe to a news service staffed entirely by people fired because they were offensive to Trumpism.
posted by sotonohito at 11:47 AM on September 15 [16 favorites]

I really wish I could cancel my Washington Post subscription a second time.

Sadly, it would probably be at least the fifth or sixth time at this point.
posted by kyleg at 11:48 AM on September 15 [5 favorites]

Are non-English publications a viable alternative?

I follow them a lot.

Pro: they're less likely to be bent by U.S.-based pressure, and less likely to be involved in "access journalism".

Con: they might be a bit less likely to have observers on the ground in the U.S. to report on U.S. stories, especially more local stories away from the largest media markets.

Standard disclaimer: everyone has a bias of some kind. You still have to be a skeptical consumer--nothing wrong with that.

My takes--

In English:

CBC News and France24 both have free streaming Roku channels, if you like to do the old person thing and have TV news talking in the background all day. (ARD/Tagesschau does, too, but in German.)

RFI from France does English-language output as well as French, they do have U.S. stories somewhat regularly.

The news sources I've actually enjoyed reading are Australian ones -- they have a certain, um, directness when talking about the current U.S. administration that I've found refreshing.

Deutsche Welle has done some good reporting on U.S. issues from time to time, including in English. (DW did a short video on ICE behavior on Native reservations in Montana a few months ago that was very, very good, as one example.)

TVPWorld from Poland has been interesting to visit from time to time. More interesting on Europe stories, but they'll do some U.S. coverage as well.

Al-Jazeera is still around.

CGTN is also available on Roku in English...it's a branch of government-run CCTV in China. I do watch it occasionally, it's reliability can vary widely depending on how sensitive the subject matter is to the Chinese government, sometimes interesting, but sometimes laughably terrible. Approach with caution. It can be a good exercise for evaluating your own media consumption: how adept are you at detecting propaganda?

I'm assuming RT is not of interest to anyone here, I manage to avoid them entirely.

Non-English:

Scandinavian news broadcasters and news agencies in general can be good, but U.S.-based stories aren't always a priority. Many will require translation services. YLE in Finland will put out some stories in English. Maybe include LRT from Lithuania in this category.

Korean sources in general have been lit up, and fascinating, during the recent ICE raid fiasco. Some have been careful in their language, others much more outspoken. I don't have specific recommendations, I've been following Korean-language links from Bluesky and running them through translators.

Open to suggestions on Latin American sources, some seem to be fairly quality orgs, but much more oriented towards local stories. It's possible I just haven't found the ones I want yet. Likewise, there seem to be some professional pubs that report on Francophone Africa, but I haven't found Africa-based reporters doing a lot of reporting on the rest of the world (which is fair enough, they're not there to meet my needs).

Don't forget paywalls:

Reliability or bias in one issue...paywalls are another. Many French- and German-language sources that I'd like to consult from time to time are behind paywalls, and I don't have the means or patience to keep up subscriptions to all of them. Lib¨¦ration? TAZ? Sorry, firewall eventually pops up and makes a sad trombone sound.
posted by gimonca at 11:48 AM on September 15 [15 favorites]

I don't think I had fully understood until he died how Charlie Kirk saying the hateful and violence-goading shit he did with an ever-present but of plausible deniability wasn't just about protecting himself legally. It's also a key part of his popularity. It allows people who think of themselves as decent to go along while kidding themselves about what they're really applauding. It's insidious.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:52 AM on September 15 [12 favorites]

Thanks for posting this one: I saw it during a meeting and wanted to post, but could not.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:13 PM on September 15 [1 favorite]

For those that lament they have but one WaPo subscription to cancel for their country, remember, you can also stop shopping at Amazon and cancel those Prime memberships!
posted by chromecow at 12:20 PM on September 15 [9 favorites]

It is curious that quoting this dead person is seen as offensive. It's as if MAGA know that they are wrong.

Believing that any MAGA knows they're wrong would require assuming they possess some level of self-awareness or some capacity for self-reflection, neither of which I can recall ever seeing a MAGA display.

An alternative explanation is that quite a lot of MAGA will have formed their impression of Kirk from a curated feed of clips showing him delivering only the same kind of aggressively wholesome family-values prosperity-gospel rah rah as every other Christian TV talking head, and will therefore immediately experience any accurate reportage of the truly vile shit he said and did on the regular as a genuinely offensive fake-news radical-left smear attempt.

Algorithmic filter bubbles are a hell of a thing.
posted by flabdablet at 12:26 PM on September 15 [9 favorites]

Checked that box too, chromecow. Wondering if this applied civics course sequence has a third semester.
posted by eirias at 12:27 PM on September 15 [2 favorites]

Don't know who paid for these--here in blood-red Trump country it could have been a local entity, or a larger effort--but in our small city there are at least two electronic billboards dedicated to Kirk's passing, one of those in-memoriam type things with his beaming face and birth and death dates (complete with a Bible verse, natch).

But as Trumpy as it is around here, I actually don't think too many people knew who Kirk was. While I'm sure there are a few folks in town who could conceivably be moved to put something up out of genuine sadness or tribute, as quickly as the billboards went up, I think it's something else. By displaying his clean-cut, nice-looking white guy face with the news that he's dead, right-wingers are rushing to preemptively shape the narrative that Kirk was perpetually and eternally a Good Guy?, tragically murdered for being such.

The billboard's audience doesn't need to know anything else--which makes it a beautiful shortcut-to-thinking piece of propaganda. Because the implication is, if you do anything other than mourn this cherub's premature flight to heaven, you must hate all that is good about America. It's like if 9/11 had a (too-small) face.
posted by Rykey at 12:31 PM on September 15 [4 favorites]

Substack sucks but at least for the present can we support this woman at a time when she is being shot out of Post's equity cannon? She needs to make a living as a writer. I'm sure she is holding her nose too but she can't pay her rent with her principles. I hope she finds another platform soon and you don't have to read her at Substack but I think it's disingenuous and harmful to immediately chastise her for this. I feel like that is putting the cart before the horse.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:40 PM on September 15 [11 favorites]

NB about Substack: I subscribe to exactly one paid substack of that has a decent following. I wrote a note to the publisher and said "Hey, can I support you without... you know..." and got an email back saying "drop $x in our tip jar and when I see it come through I'll comp you a year's subscription". It's worth a try. At least then you aren't laundering your $ thru the N*zi money machine, and the publisher gets your funds without a cut.
posted by scolbath at 12:52 PM on September 15 [5 favorites]

Democracy dies in whiteness.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:53 PM on September 15 [15 favorites]

with an all-white opinion section

The opinions section no longer has any full-time Black writers, and that is shameful. But it is not all-white either. Ramesh Ponnuru is pretty lousy but he's there. Fareed Zakaria and Michelle Singletary are syndicated. Dr Leana Wen and Shadi Hamid are contributing columnists. So is Ted Johnson. Colby King is retiring in December, but for now he's still in print every Saturday.

It's possible that the Editorial Board is all white, but the Post no longer discloses who's on it. That is, the "Editorial Board" link on this page (scroll down, on the right) now doesn't go anywhere.

It's true that the big editorships at the Post are now basically just white men, and also true that the Black writers they've recently lost are a pantheon of talent that would make any paper shine: Perry Bacon, Robert Samuels and Eugene Robinson are particularly missed. And now Attiah.

Worth noting: The Washington Post Guild union condemns the unjust firing of columnist Karen Attiah
posted by Pallas Athena at 1:05 PM on September 15 [8 favorites]

Flight Hardware, do not touch: "I wonder if getting outside the national borders is the only large-scale option now."

Sort of a reverse Voice Of America!
posted by wenestvedt at 1:13 PM on September 15

I find binary race framing particularly malignant. OP was probably just over-eager to get on the Blue.

Did you read the reason why she was fired? She quoted Kirk's quote:

Quoting Charlie Kirk's own words, ""Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot".

How is race irrelevant?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:28 PM on September 15 [31 favorites]

I was the last remaining Black full-time opinion columnist at the Post, in one of the nation¡¯s most diverse regions. Washington D.C. no longer has a paper that reflects the people it serves. What happened to me is part of a broader purge of Black voices from academia, business, government, and media ¡ª a historical pattern as dangerous as it is shameful ¡ª and tragic.

From TFA.
posted by 99_ at 1:49 PM on September 15 [11 favorites]

grokus, you make reasonable-sounding noises for someone who doesn't appear to have a fucking clue about anything
posted by Didymus at 2:01 PM on September 15 [7 favorites]

I (almost) feel bad for these people, thinking they have an original intelligent thought that they feel is worth sharing with the world, when in reality they¡¯re just the dumbest most boring piles of shit around. It¡¯s the same refrain for centuries, how can anyone not be tired of it.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:05 PM on September 15 [3 favorites]

Misanthropic, it may be important to clarify who you mean with that....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:09 PM on September 15

The guy who killed Charlie Kirk is obviously someone who followed him ¡ª who listened to him as he endlessly extolled the virtues of, the necessity of political violence.

In a very real sense, Charlie Kirk engineered his own assassination.
posted by jamjam at 2:11 PM on September 15 [8 favorites]

If it wasn¡¯t clear, I¡¯m talking about the people who respond to black people complaining about racism with ¡°but talking about race is the real racism¡±
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:24 PM on September 15 [11 favorites]

it's easy to infer approval of political violence into Attiah's post

wtaf
posted by j_curiouser at 2:47 PM on September 15 [7 favorites]

Racial belief is self-oppression
i'm no expert but this sounds like total apologist bullshit to me
posted by daisystomper at 2:47 PM on September 15 [9 favorites]

same as arresting Russian protesters holding up blank signs. "i can imagine offensive speech."
posted by j_curiouser at 2:49 PM on September 15 [4 favorites]

This is openly white supremacist speech .
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:49 PM on September 15 [8 favorites]

Racial belief is self-oppression
Yeah, I'm happy to be educated on this if it's a framing that I'm out of step with because of my age, but I don't think you get to drop something like this in with some credentialling.

[edited for clarification about what I am referring to]
posted by 99_ at 2:50 PM on September 15 [2 favorites]

You're stuck in a stupid frame.

You're stuck in a white hood.
posted by mittens at 2:58 PM on September 15 [10 favorites]

Wait, when there is a high profile victims of atrocious racist treatment, the problem is that the victim quotes the offender's atrocious racist garbage and gets fired for it??? Cue the Will Farrell "am I taking crazy pills meme".

The Regime has built a massive secret police force beholden to no one but Trump, is blackbagging our hispanic brothers and sisters, ramping up re-segregation efforts on our black brothers and sisters, is Horst Wesseling one of the leading lights of the white supremacy 'movement', is advocating executing the homeless and the mentally ill, and seems to be moments away from outlawing transitioning.

But yea, pointing out racism is the problem cause racism is all made up in the minds of its victims.

And that installing of Robert E Lee portrait in the entry way of the Pentagon is just a recognition of martial virtue.
posted by WatTylerJr at 3:06 PM on September 15 [12 favorites]

Durn, I wish I could unsubscribe from WaPo over this, but alas, I unsubscribed from WaPo countless WaPo atrocities ago.
posted by Don Pepino at 3:25 PM on September 15 [1 favorite]

The utter betray of democracy by the mainstream "liberal" press was pretty clear already (at least to anyone paying attention) but their amplification of the manufactured outrage over this, including their role in actively firing and silencing anyone who declares this clown less than a martyr and attempts to highlight what he actually said -- the masks are so freaking off. We always knew the NYT, the Post, etc, talked out of both sides of their mouths, but this is almost literally full throated "PRAISE BE THE NEW AMERICAN REICH!" headlines on the front page level of masks off.

If all of the major news companies and outlets in the country were to fire every single person who is not white, straight, and male, it wouldn't be a far cry from what we're seeing
posted by treepour at 3:58 PM on September 15 [5 favorites]

same as arresting Russian protesters holding up blank signs. "i can imagine offensive speech."

tbc, I'm analogizing grokus' take that a quote without commentary is equivalent to advocating political assassination.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:14 PM on September 15

> I really wish I could cancel my Washington Post subscription a second time

I can't cancel it a first time. I have a digital subscription that I haven't paid for in a long time. It isn't being billed to me, I am not paying it, nobody I know is paying it, it shows up as being unpaid, trying to cancel it gives an error message. Yay me?
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:17 PM on September 15

I think grokus might be confusing the is and the ought in her words. She¡¯s saying, regardless of whether you think political violence ought to play a role in this country¡¯s affairs, the facts on the ground make very plain that it does and that there¡¯s no real hope for change.
posted by eirias at 5:31 PM on September 15

While I did know that Charlie Kirk existed, I have never looked at what he was doing on those university campuses till today, when I gave it an hour of my precious life. He was, as some here already know, a jerk and a bully. Just like Donald Trump. The essence of MAGA is to embrace being jerks and celebrate bullying.

When I was in fifth grade, our class was ruled by four bullies. It was a huge problem. At some point, the vice-dean of the school told us we had to fight fire with fire, and thus encouraged, we all bullied them back. They reacted aggressively. In the end, they were expelled from the school, except for one of them who later suffered a terrible fate. But the weird thing was that we were all left with shame. We felt like we had become dirty by engaging in that mean behavior. We felt that those boys needed help, not bullying.
What I felt, and I think most of us experienced, is that there is a sick satisfaction in bullying as a group. You are sort of high in the moment, not least when it is authorized from the leadership. But that doesn't change the fact that you are doing wrong. We were righteous in a way, our bullying served the purpose of protecting the vulnerable. But it was still bullying, we were just mirroring the bad guys.
What I want to point to is that high we felt when we were still the bullies: MAGA is on a collective rage which right now feels amazing to them, and which is incredibly dangerous. And what is also dangerous is that many people can't stop, because they can't live with the shame that follows.
posted by mumimor at 5:48 PM on September 15 [15 favorites]

Sorry, it could look like I left out Karen Attiah here. IMO, the main issue is that she pointed this out. And was fired for that.
posted by mumimor at 5:51 PM on September 15 [2 favorites]

Mumimor, that is a really interesting comment. And certainly worth thinking about. But IMO these aren't bullies. They are aspirational Nazis with the strongest grip on the US Government I've ever seen. It's a bit specious, but I think this is analogous to the redistricting showdown. The right side goes immediately after whatever 'helps' them the most and the left side plays by norms, thinks that being the moral and ethical side, it will eventually come out on top. Or at least a draw and re-set things back to 1986. It's not going to happen that way.

You cannot do that with an aspirational Nazi regime. They are not going to stop unless they are made to stop. I dont know how that happens when they control all the levers of real power, governmental, corporate, economic.... maybe the left still has cultural power advantage, but in the age of social media oligarchy, that is fading.

We still have the mass of people... but for how long.... hang together or we hang apart.
posted by WatTylerJr at 6:35 PM on September 15 [9 favorites]

Peter Navarro was on MSNBC's Ari Melber program tonight. He ended the interview urging Ari to look up the quote that Kirk said black women are mentally inferior, saying it was a rumor.

Here is Snopes with the rated as true

(I edited this. There is a link to a video of the entire show.)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:37 PM on September 15 [1 favorite]

A copy of the firing letter has been released. It says, in part,

"Your postings on Bluesky (which clearly identities you as a Post Columnist) about white men in response to the killing of Charlie Kirk do not comply with our policy. For example, you posted: "Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is.... not the same as violence" and "Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence."

posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:36 PM on September 15 [6 favorites]

The letter from WaPo firing her has been released. It's not unfair to say she was fired for mentioning "white men" as a race.

Among other requirements, the Company-wide social media policy mandates that all
employee social media postings be respectful and prohibits postings that disparage people
based on their race, gender or other protected characteristics. The policy also reminds
employees that everything they post is a reflection on the Company and should not affect
the integrity of The Post¡¯s journalism. Your postings on Bluesky (which clearly identifies you
as a Post Columnist) about white men in response to the killing of Charlie Kirk do not
comply with our policy. For example, you posted: ¡°Refusing to tear my clothes and smear
ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is¡­.
not the same as violence¡± and ¡°Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that
people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred
and violence.¡±

https://beehiiv-publication-files.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/downloadables/589f0e76-784b-4aeb-a6e8-0d44b943e3a0/314ca3c4-c888-441c-856d-d92e2b199e05/Redacted%20Termination%20Letter.pdf

(sorry, I can't get the link insertion to show the link)
posted by Warren Terra at 7:38 PM on September 15 [2 favorites]

Kirk appears to have made disgustingly racist comments amongst his other flaws, but Attiah's cited comments I interpret as openly and thoughtlessly racially divisive too. She lost her platform for it. Let's move on.
posted by grokus at 7:59 PM on September 15

"White men who espouse hatred and violence" is not a racial group, it is a descriptive category which mainly applies to white male MAGA supporters.

I am a white man, and I do not remotely feel disrespected by this description, or offended by it in any way.

You can move on if you like, grokus. In fact I and many people in this thread might not regret it if you did, but I am staying right here.
posted by jamjam at 8:31 PM on September 15 [34 favorites]

Kirk appears to have made disgustingly racist comments amongst his other flaws, but Attiah's cited comments I interpret as openly and thoughtlessly racially divisive too. She lost her platform for it. Let's move on.

This is some "All Lives Matter"-style derailing/tone-policing of anyone who points out active, specific harms caused powerful people taking advantage of structural oppression. It's a smokescreen to excuse that oppression and justify violence by the oppressors, and it makes me sick.
posted by cnidaria at 8:35 PM on September 15 [31 favorites]

It's not style or tone, its explicit, direct racism policing, by an organization against its employee. Tone policing in text is about indirect references "you know THOSE people..."

She could have made a much stronger statement calling him a national figure, a repugnant celebrity, a white supremacist (thats an attitude or belief), or any number of more interesting and useful characterizations. But it's his skin color thats relevant? That racially charged rhetoric IS the derail. Details and precision matter in the press in order for the public to make high quality informed decisions.
posted by grokus at 9:38 PM on September 15

She could have made a much stronger statement calling him a national figure, a repugnant celebrity, a white supremacist (thats an attitude or belief), or any number of more interesting and useful characterizations. But it's his skin color thats relevant?

It¡¯s relevant because it¡¯s the relevant fact about him to Trump and MAGA!

Evidently there were quite a few Trump voters among black men and Latinos. Aside from Rubio, do we see any of them in his administration? On the other hand, he¡¯s gotten rid of any number of black women in positions of power in the Federal government at all levels. Trump has a visceral fear of black people, as was demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt when he scurried down to his White House bunker as fast as his 4Fing bone spurs would allow when a small number of black people came to DC to protest the George Floyd murder during his first Administration.

And I cannot point to any public figure at all who is a non-white white supremacist. Can you?

Do you honestly think there would have been a remotely similar uproar on the right if the speaker who was killed happened to be a person of color instead of a white man?
posted by jamjam at 11:23 PM on September 15 [6 favorites]

That letter is disgusting, and WaPo leadership should be ashamed of themselves. They will be ashamed of themselves one day, when all this is over.

But IMO these aren't bullies. They are aspirational Nazis with the strongest grip on the US Government I've ever seen. It's a bit specious, but I think this is analogous to the redistricting showdown. The right side goes immediately after whatever 'helps' them the most and the left side plays by norms, thinks that being the moral and ethical side, it will eventually come out on top. Or at least a draw and re-set things back to 1986. It's not going to happen that way.

The original Nazis were bullies and thugs. I agree that playing by the rules doesn't work in this situation, and that entirely new rules will need to be written after MAGA has been beaten down. And that will be tough. Contrary to what J.D. Vance seems to think, WW2 did not end with a negotiation, it ended with the Axis nations being reduced to rubble. It is now proven that the American laws and norms cannot hold up against fascism. I think that what I learnt from my childhood experience and from reading about the history of resistance against fascism is that in fighting evil you will get a taste of how evil can feel good in a bad way. (I guess that is what LOTR is about). And you have to deal with your own shame as well as the far greater shame of the fascists.

To circle back: by using false equivalencies to tone-police and even fire Karen Appiah, WaPo is doing something extremely bad -- to themselves as well as to Appiah. They are abandoning any last sense of morality. What Karen Appiah wrote was perhaps not very tasteful, right after Kirk was shot. But it was morally right to hold on to the anger against a man who called for violence and death on his opponents, whose core business was to spout out racist lies, and lived off fear and hatred. I don't think political violence is ever legitimate. But no-one needs to elevate evil people just because they are dead.
posted by mumimor at 2:13 AM on September 16 [6 favorites]

Kirk appears to have made disgustingly racist comments amongst his other flaws, but Attiah's cited comments I interpret as openly and thoughtlessly racially divisive too. She lost her platform for it. Let's move on.

Grokus, for the love of white baby jesus, listen to yourself. Kirk appears to have made--I mean, if you would like to know the reality behind the appearance, it's not hard to find (in, for example, Attiah's piece).

Among his other flaws--none of this is about his personality. He was a propagandist. Specifically, he went to schools and tried to turn vulnerable children against the values of kindness and fairness, grooming them for a life of white supremacist Trumpism.

But listen, listen. You say Attiah was thoughtlessly racially divisive. A woman who moved to the top of her profession, writing editorial opinions read by millions...said something thoughtlessly? In this specific context, you, Grokus, are echoing Kirk's racist comment "Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously." You, Grokus, with your "thoughtlessly," are repeating the work of the nazi propagandist, to criticize a black woman who was fired for voicing opinions even though voicing opinions was her actual job.

So here is my conclusion. I don't think it's possible to talk about a white supremacist movement taking over our government, I don't think it's possible to talk about the fascist strands in our culture, about the knee-bending of all major media, without talking explicitly about the centering of white men. When racist things are happening, you have to talk about race. Attiah made comments appropriate to the moment, and joined the rest of her black colleagues in being erased from Bezos' Post.

Let's move on. That's the problem. We're not even halfway done with the purges yet. The fascists are moving on. Today there will be someone new. Will you apologize for the next purge, the way you've done it here?
posted by mittens at 3:22 AM on September 16 [48 favorites]

That letter is disgusting, and WaPo leadership should be ashamed of themselves.

yeah, I quoted it when Amazon asked "why are you cancelling your Prime membership" just now.

Not gonna lie, felt good.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:54 AM on September 16 [8 favorites]

I don't think it's possible to talk about a white supremacist movement taking over our government, I don't think it's possible to talk about the fascist strands in our culture, about the knee-bending of all major media, without talking explicitly about the centering of white men. When racist things are happening, you have to talk about race.

Flagged as fantastic, mittens.
posted by eirias at 4:45 AM on September 16 [11 favorites]

grokus, if you think describing Charlie Kirk as a white supremacist would have been fine because that's "an attitude or belief," can you explain how "White men who espouse hatred and violence" is not also "an attitude or belief"?

Because that position seems... spurious at best.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:25 AM on September 16 [3 favorites]

Honestly, and with no sarcasm intended in the slightest, I do think Grokus illustrated the entire problem in a nutshell. I doubt that was their intent, but it's a near platonic example of the whataboutism and BothSides(tm) thinking that pervades the entire Democratic party and American liberalism in general and which is enabling the Fascists like Trump to steamroll America.

There's an urge, so deeply ingrained as to be almost subconscious and burned into muscle memory, to assume that since the Fascists are extreme to oppose them is necessarially also extreme and therefore bad.

it's a weird sort of pseudo-masochistic and deeply flawed syllogism: Kirk was a racist. Therefore to oppose Kirk is to be bad. Racism is bad. Therefore to oppose Kirk is racist. QED.

The idea of winning is so tainted to so many of our leaders, and our fellow citizens, that trying to win, striving, opposing with your full might, is seen as inherently suspect if not outright inherently evil. What do you mean you want to win?! That's what the bad guys do!

So the proper action, in the Schumer/WaPo/NYT/Hollywood/Grokus mind is to waffle, to falsely equivocate so that any reference to a bad action by the right absolutely MUST be balanced by an accusation of equally bad action by the liberals and/or left. A simple, firm, unyielding, condemnation of the right is a sign of evil because in that mindset simply having any firm convictions at all is evil.

I could blame it on the decades of right wing temper tantrums, and there's no denying that many people are genuinely conditioned to avoid saying things that might piss off the right because their temper tantrums are so obnoxious. But I think there's something deeper here than mere Pavlovian conditioning to cringe and submit when the right starts making noise.

It is, ultimately, the belief that liberalism, much less leftism, is actually bad coupled with a rational concern about rightism.

We see this in the sort of self hating humor that many liberals indulge in. I recall Dave Barry (that's how old I am) describing politics via a parable about your car breaking down by the side of the road. The Democrats, he said, are people who will stop and try to help but make the problem even worse, while the Republicans are people who drive past and throw empty beer bottles at you.

It says, in essence, that sure I guess the right is bad, but my side is terrible, ineffecitve, worthless, and it's shameful to be on my side.

And that's a belief so widely spread on the American liberal/Democratic/whatever side that it appears to have hold on a solid majority of them.

The solution is moral courage. So no, I absolutely refuse to agree with the spurious and insulting proposition that by criticizing Kirk, Attiah was just as bad.

She was right. Kirk was wrong.

She was speaking truth. Kirk was lying.

She is promoting virtue. Kirk was promoting evil.

I am not going to play the self destructive, and entirely false, game of blaming the victims of right wing attacks for being attacked.
posted by sotonohito at 6:35 AM on September 16 [25 favorites]

Not only was Kirk promoting evil, he knew that what he was promoting was evil and he did it for laughs and profit.
posted by mumimor at 7:00 AM on September 16 [8 favorites]

I can't actually know this but I also think Kirk was a true believer.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:03 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]

¡°It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.¡±
Upton Sinclair
posted by mumimor at 7:25 AM on September 16 [6 favorites]

But it's his skin color thats relevant?"

Yes, skin color is relevant. In her Substack piece, she directly links to the data that shows why, "I pointed to the familiar pattern of America shrugging off gun deaths, and giving compassion for white men who commit and espouse political violence. This cycle has been documented for years. Nothing I said was new or false or disparaging¡ª it is descriptive, and supported by data."

Note she is primarily referring to the skin color of the shooter, only secondarily of Kirk, "Since then, my words on absolution for white male violence have proven prescient. The suspect in Kirk¡¯s killing is indeed a young white man, and already, lawmakers are urging us to pray for him. The media is painting the 22 year-old as a good, all-American suburban kid. The cycle I mentioned has once again come to pass."
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:58 AM on September 16 [8 favorites]

MAGA is on a collective rage which right now feels amazing to them, and which is incredibly dangerous.

It's grown some since 2012.

After Obama Victory, Shrieking White-Hot Sphere Of Pure Rage Early GOP Front-Runner For 2016

it's got me building this hive
posted by flabdablet at 8:36 AM on September 16 [4 favorites]

Honestly, and with no sarcasm intended in the slightest, I do think Grokus illustrated the entire problem in a nutshell. I doubt that was their intent, but it's a near platonic example of the whataboutism and BothSides(tm) thinking that pervades the entire Democratic party and American liberalism in general and which is enabling the Fascists like Trump to steamroll America.


Getting profoundly upset about the whiteness of white racists being mentioned as a relevant fact when a person of colour is discussing their experience re systemic racism is not, in fact, "whataboutism and both-sides-ism", it's an absolutely textbook example of white fragility.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:31 AM on September 16 [16 favorites]

Peter Navarro was on MSNBC's Ari Melber program tonight. He ended the interview urging Ari to look up the quote that Kirk said black women are mentally inferior, saying it was a rumor.

Back during the first Trump administration NPR used to welcome Peter Navarro on the air to lie to them unchallenged.

They still might, but I quit listening to NPR.
posted by Gelatin at 12:00 PM on September 16 [1 favorite]

This statement is intended in a spirit of peace.

I bare multiple superficial resemblances to Kirk, so when I see superficial commonalities being advanced as factors to devalue his life, I receive that communication as a micro aggression. It's "micro" because I can read the specific intent in the statement too and I'm not actually part of the specific group called out. The deeper irony that I recognize in his death makes this all the more confusing.

I'm tired of this divisive both sidesism -- I'm on team common humanity and there are plenty of us, but neither Kirk, nor his shooter are on that side, and I hold hope that Attiah will come around.

As for fragility, I was raised in a racist environment. The tension between racial alienation and the obvious humanity of those alienated has long been a source of cognitive dissonance. I've extensively explored other cultures. I've worked to reduce my own racial bias, detect and prevent my own micro aggressive behaviors, but no tension is one sided. Having done work, just to get alienated myself, the dissonance comes rushing back. Now as someone with a degree of maturity and empathy, I can recognize that hurt people hurt people. More importantly I need to recognize that just because I've changed, have improved, can improve further, why should I expect someone else who I don't even know to have changed? I can explain, attempt repair, forgive, call out, ignore, demonstrate, document, collaborate or any number of other non violent options.

I also recognize that this is too tidy. It doesn't address the systemic flaws or remediation of inequity. I didn't architect the system we live in, I'm just articulating what I see and some of what I've learned. It's hard and can be lonely, but I feel it's worth the while. I hope someone finds this helpful. If this resonates, or you have questions, feel free to DM. Peace.
posted by grokus at 12:42 PM on September 16 [1 favorite]

Bro you came in to a thread about a black woman being fired for her speech and said that she was oppressing herself. BYE!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:46 PM on September 16 [5 favorites]

I bare multiple superficial resemblances to Kirk, so when I see superficial commonalities being advanced as factors to devalue his life, I receive that communication as a micro aggression.

It's awesome the way racists just can't help telling on themselves when the subject comes up.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:06 PM on September 16 [6 favorites]

I do think you¡¯re quite wrong, Grokus, for the reasons I stated and also for something I am not up to articulating right now and may never be, but nothing qualifies me to judge you, and I appreciate your efforts to explain yourself.
posted by jamjam at 1:07 PM on September 16 [4 favorites]

> grokus: "I'm on team common humanity"

Thank goodness for that. However, I would like to point out that those who blind themselves to race also blind themselves to racism. And if one is unable or unwilling to examine racism in these present times, I fear that one will be ill-equipped to grapple with what is happening now (and events soon-to-come).
posted by mhum at 2:35 PM on September 16 [14 favorites]

I bare multiple superficial resemblances to Kirk,
bear

so when I see superficial commonalities being advanced as factors to devalue his life,
that did not happen

I receive that communication as a micro aggression.
Your micro may vary. It does vary. It's a nanoaggression at best. It's a pea and you're the only princess who can feel it. You're not getting fired. People aren't asking to touch your hair. People don't follow you around in stores because they're convinced you're going to shoplift. One person who looks like you got hideously murdered and the entire machinery of state is now devoted to mourning that person; people who look like you are not being hideously murdered in droves all of the time, all ignored by the state.

...I'm on team common humanity and there are plenty of us, but neither Kirk, nor his shooter are on that side, and I hold hope that Attiah will come around.
Do you hear yourself at all? You "hold hope that Attiah will come around" to your way of thinking because your way of thinking is obviously superior? Do you ever question your own thinking?

...I've worked to reduce my own racial bias, detect and prevent my own micro aggressive behaviors, but no tension is one sided. Having done work, just to get alienated myself, the dissonance comes rushing back.
You opted to do work. You didn't have to do work to survive. Now, having done optional work, you want a cookie. But most people in here don't have time to drop everything and find a cookie for you because for most people here, as for Attiah, the work is constant and not optional. That nobody is trying to hand you a cookie is not a tragedy of epic proportions that you should feel compelled to outline for us here today.

Now as someone with a degree of maturity and empathy, I can recognize that hurt people hurt people. More importantly I need to recognize that just because I've changed, have improved, can improve further, why should I expect someone else who I don't even know to have changed?
Why should you expect that someone else whom you don't even know needs to change? Why should you expect that you understand any of this even an itsybitsy teeny weeny mini micro nano iota?

I can explain, attempt repair, forgive, call out, ignore, demonstrate, document, collaborate or any number of other non violent options.
Mazel tov.

I also recognize that this is too tidy.
Having recognized same, why did you not move your right little finger up and to the right to the backspace key and press it firmly and in a sustained manner until everything in white on blue disappeared?

I didn't architect the system we live in,
Hammering the living shit out of "architect" to try to make it into a verb is not sufficient effort to disguise "We didn't start the fire."

I'm just articulating what I see and some of what I've learned.
I dispute that what you have done is properly called "learned."

It's hard and can be lonely, but I feel it's worth the while.
You can't hear yourself, clearly. If you could, then you would know perfectly well that the mournful condescension in this is tuned to the exact frequency needed to set everyone's hair on fire.

I hope someone finds this helpful.
Why can't you hear it? If you've really done all of this selfless work to improve yourself so as to be in a position to lead the other races into your enlightened whiteguy glasnost, how is it you can't hear how insufferable all of this sounds to other people?
posted by Don Pepino at 2:59 PM on September 16 [15 favorites]

Everyone: I¡¯ve done 10,000 hours of DEI training. I¡¯ve done the work. Now let me tell you about reverse racism.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 3:02 PM on September 16 [5 favorites]

In a very real sense, Charlie Kirk engineered his own assassination.
posted by jamjam at 2:11 PM

I think you mean that Kirk became the change he wanted to see
posted by eustatic at 3:34 PM on September 16 [8 favorites]

Calling out white racists is a micro aggression because my posts bear superficial similarity to their posts, lol.
posted by ryanrs at 4:24 PM on September 16 [3 favorites]

i dunno guys, i think we should give not seeing race or talking about race more time to solve racism

we're probably nearly there already

feels like we're right on the cusp

any minute now
posted by prefpara at 4:41 PM on September 16 [8 favorites]

I bare multiple superficial resemblances to Kirk, so when I see superficial commonalities being advanced as factors to devalue his life, I receive that communication as a micro aggression.

The thing that devalues his life is not his whiteness. The thing that devalues his life is his willingness to salt the fucking earth in the name of whiteness.

I, a white person, am harmed by white supremacy's obsessive focus on whiteness. Humanity is enriched by diversity, and white supremacists seek to drain that diversity, to bleed it dry. The whiteness they seek is the emptied corpse. They're a death-cult. I am not harmed by people theorizing about racism. I am not harmed by the astonished cries of what is wrong with white people, as the entire apparatus of government turns to canonize a mediocre exponent of racist philosophy, firing anyone who dares question them.

You are not harmed either. You can choose to "receive that communication as a micro aggression" but that is a form of self-harm.

But, jesus christ, here's a thread about the unfair firing of a black woman, and here we are, talking about a white guy's feelings. This is a fucking trap.
posted by mittens at 4:48 PM on September 16 [32 favorites]

One thing about the cancel culture that I find ridiculous is that it is so all or nothing. Someone says something deemed unacceptable, there are a lot of things to do short of firing that person.

I remember the Republicans cancel culture from the 90s. Nannygate and a black woman who wrote a professorial essay on alternatives to one person, one vote (the US Senate being an example) And wasn't that the whole thing with Project Veritas? I'll edit this video to mock you and get you fired.

BTW, Project Veritas's recent thing has been anti-Trump/the Epstein files.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:48 PM on September 16

whiteguy glasnost is an outstanding username tho
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:36 AM on September 17 [2 favorites]

grokus Not to pile on, but I don't think you've actually addressed the issue raised by others that you're falsely representing Attiah's comments and seem to be operating under the assumption that to mention "white men" in any context other than laudatory (or perhaps in any context at all, white men after all do tend to really HATE being identified as such), as being racist against white men.

Full disclosure: I'm a cis het white man. So I'm speaking here from a position of being the supposed victim in the way you're trying to frame what Attaih said.

Attiah said "Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence."

It was necessary to say "white" there for the simple reason that otherwise the statement would be false. You can't fill in "people who espouse hatred and violence" without lying.

There is no similar cultural imperative to forgive, to absolve, and to retroactively claim a dead Black man who espoused hatred and violence was good. There is no similar demand to lionize and forgive dead trans people who espouse hatred and violence. There is no similar demand to forgive and make a show of redeeming dead gay people who espouse hatred and violence. There is no similar demand to forgive and embrace dead Muslim people who espouse hatred and violence.

You cannot be colorblind (a term you didn't actually use, but one which does seem to match your general aim here) without lying and ignoring reality. Because in reality there are real, substantiative, differences in how mainstream (cis het white and male that is) society treats people based on their race. To pretend that everything is already equal and you can therefore, and must therefore, ignore race (and sex, and everything else about a person) when discussing that person and how society treats them is invalid.

You seem to be claiming that Attiah, like Kirk, is outside your "team common humanity" and that she must somehow redeem herself and denounce her words to be on that team. That she must, in other words, ignore reality and join in a fantasy.

This is exactly what people men when they say you can be racist, or you can be anti-racist, there is no "non". As NK Jemisin put it, when oppression is the status quo there can be no neutrality.

So yes, fellow white man, we must directly, unflinchingly, and willingly address the problem that white men are creating. This is absolutely NOT a statement that all white men are bad, or racist, or evil, or must grovel and beg forgiveness, or whatever.

It is simply an acknowledgement that the problems we are discussing are problems that were created by white men, and are continued by white men, and that the only way those problems will be fixed is if white men stop causing the problem.

I'll quote Chris Rock again, because he said it so perfectly:

"When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it's all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they're not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before."

Racism exists because, and only because, white people choose to be racist. That's not an aggression, micro or otherwise, that's the truth. And that's something you're simply not talking about in your vague generalities about "team common humanity".

You don't have to address that, but until you do then there's not much more to say.
posted by sotonohito at 11:56 AM on September 17 [15 favorites]

>Details and precision matter in the press in order for the public to make
>high quality informed decisions.

If you've seen the US press/media (or in many many other countries) you also know this is not true - the "details & precision" don't matter if you have an agenda to push or theres money to be made. Oddly, given Attiahs status as the "only remaining full-time Black opinion columnist" presumably there is a majority of opinion writer still remaining of a certain demographic composition and I'm guessing they are not held to the same standard.
posted by phigmov at 9:52 PM on September 17 [1 favorite]

Things Are Somehow Getting Worse for the Washington Post (archive link)
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:36 AM on September 18 [3 favorites]

I guess we now know that Bezos doesn't think "personal liberty" includes thinking Charlie Kirk didn't magically stop being an evil asshole just because someone murdered him.
posted by sotonohito at 9:23 AM on September 18 [2 favorites]

NYT: Washington Post Columnist Says She Was Fired for Posts After Charlie Kirk Shooting (note: nothing really fresh/new here, just posting for posterity.)
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:43 AM on September 18 [3 favorites]

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