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| Sarah Jeong |
'MediaBuzz' host Howard Kurtz
weighs in on the increasing difficulty of defending the New York Times
for hiring Sarah Jeong, a writer with a history of racist and anti-Trump
tweets, while Facebook, Apple and other tech giants are perfectly
comfortable banning Alex Jones.
Their cases could not be more different. But it's
getting increasingly difficult to defend the New York Times for hiring a
writer with a history of racist and anti-Trump tweets, while Facebook,
Apple and other tech giants are perfectly comfortable banning Alex
Jones.
The debate around Sarah Jeong, the Times' newest
editorial writer, initially focused on her Twitter postings denigrating
and mocking white men. But critics have found equally troubling tweets
since then.
First there was the discovery of "F--- the police" and "cops are a--holes." How does a major American newspaper defend that?
The Times, and Jeong herself, initially said she
regrets the white men-are-"bull----"-and-"dogs" tweets, but was
imitating the online hate she was drawing as an Asian-American woman.
I didn't buy the explanation, but felt a bit of
sympathy for Jeong as the latest victim of a social media mob demanding
her firing. As is all too common in these matters, conservatives have
led the charge against Jeong, just as liberals have spearheaded the
online opposition against such conservative writers as Kevin Williamson
(hired and then quickly unhired by the Atlantic over his past comments
such as equating abortion and murder).
But the latest Jeong tweets, noted by The Washington Times, are as beyond the pale as attacks on white men and police officers.
Jeong has tweeted that "Trump is Hitler,"
"Trump=Hitler," "trump is basically hitler," and "Was Hitler as rapey as
Donald Trump?"
How is it even remotely acceptable to compare the
president of the United States to a Nazi who was one of history's
greatest mass murderers? The Times would never hire a writer who hurled
charges like that against a Democrat. So there is a reeking double
standard here.
The paper, which declined comment yesterday, has said,
among other things, "we had candid conversations with Sarah as part of
our thorough vetting process, which included a review of her social
media history." The view at the Times is that there's an orchestrated
campaign against Jeong by people with an agenda and the company doesn't
want to fan the flames. That's understandable, but the toxic nature of
the tweets has ensured that this is not a one-day story.
One contrast: When the editorial board recently hired
and unhired writer Quinn Norton, it was over tweets that were hostile to
gays, not white people in general. So there is a line for the
Times—it's just that, somehow, Jeong didn't cross it.
In the aforementioned Atlantic, National Review's Reihan Salam tries to explain the Jeong world view:
"Many of the white-bashers of my acquaintance have been
highly-educated and affluent Asian American professionals. So why do
they do it?"
He says it’s often glorified trolling, "the most
transgressive thing you can get away with saying without actually
getting called out for it. In this sense, it's a way of establishing
solidarity: All of us in this space get it, and we have nothing but
disdain for those who do not. And some may well be intended as a defiant
retort to bigotry."
Salam argues that especially for Asian-Americans,
"embracing the culture of upper-white self-flagellation can spur
avowedly enlightened whites to eagerly cheer on their Asian American
comrades who show (abstract, faceless, numberless) lower-white people
what for."
That still seems to me like an intellectual way of justifying not a "defiant retort to bigotry," but plain old bigotry.
Andrew Sullivan says
that "#cancelblackpeople probably wouldn't fly at the New York Times,
would it? Or imagine someone tweeting that Jews were only 'fit to live
underground like groveling goblins' or that she enjoyed 'being cruel to
old Latina women,' and then being welcomed and celebrated by a liberal
newsroom. Not exactly in the cards.”
As a member of a minority group, Sullivan says, Jeong
is deemed "incapable of racism," and that's why she "hasn't apologized
to the white people she denigrated or conceded that her tweets were
racist. Nor has she taken responsibility for them."
As for Alex Jones, I'm getting a lot of pushback from
conservatives who say it's an assault on the First Amendment for
Facebook, YouTube, Apple and Spotify to ban him from their hugely
popular platforms. But it has nothing to do with the First Amendment, as
these are private companies who are deciding what content they will
allow.
There is a free speech question, of course, and
Facebook and Twitter have in the past discriminated against
conservatives, and they acknowledge they have a problem. But the case
against Jones isn't based on his political views; it’s aimed mainly at
his propagation of conspiracy theories, such as that the horrific
Newtown school massacre never happened.
Jones still has an online show; his speech hasn’t been
suppressed, though it's been curtailed by these Big Tech giants. But it
would be a mistake to cast the Infowars founder, who blames a "yellow
journalism campaign," as being punished for just being on the right.
And yet it's not hard to understand why conservative critics can't believe that Sarah Jeong emerged unscathed.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "
MediaBuzz"
(Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author "Media Madness: Donald Trump, The
Press and the War Over the Truth." Follow him at @HowardKurtz.
Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.
