The New York Times Hired A Racist Troll And Defended Her
The New York Times is under fire after announcing the hiring of Sarah Jeong. Over two years Jeong made a serious of racist statements, in one instance calling white people "groveling goblins" among other offensive terms.The New York Times says this was just trolling and that she won't do this again, but they also mention that they knew she had made the posts. This is in stark contrast to the firing of Quinn Norton who did not make direct racist statements like Jeong yet was fired following a controversy over her use of certain words.So is this NYT being hypocrites or have outrage mob tactics stopped working?Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The New York Times recently announced they're hiring tech writer Sarah Zhang to their editorial board.
This means that she will help shape the voice and the opinion of the New York Times on issues related to technology.
Following this, a controversy emerged after people unearthed old tweets that are very anti-white.
Several articles have emerged accusing her of making racist posts, and there's even an editing war happening on her Wikipedia page, where people are trying to determine whether or not she's racist, or just racially insensitive, and what racist even means.
Among the left and the right, there is a differing opinion as to what the word racist means.
So what exactly did Sarah Jean say?
Is it as bad as everyone thinks?
And is what she said actually racist?
But before we get started, take a look down just below the video and you will see a join button.
This is what I do for a living.
So if you like these videos, you want to see more like it, and want to see more on the ground reporting and interviews, please consider becoming a channel member by clicking join and signing up for just a few dollars every month to help me continue doing my work.
On August 1st, the New York Times announced Sarah Zhang joins the Times editorial board.
What would it be like if we all deleted Facebook?
What does the future of online privacy look like?
Why can't the tech industry diversify?
Are monkeys allowed to sue over copyrights?
And what in the world is Cockygate?
To answer questions like these, the editorial board will soon be turning to Sarah Zhang, who will join us in September as our lead writer on technology.
Sarah will also collaborate with Susan Fowler-Rigetti, our incoming tech op-ed editor, and Kara Swisher, our latest contributor on tech issues.
She arrives most recently from The Verge, where she's a senior writer.
She also authored the book The Internet of Garbage, which examines the many forms of online harassment, free speech, and the challenges of moderating platforms and social media networks.
And this brings us to the controversy, the anti-white posts made by Sarah Zhang, and the question of whether or not they're racist.
In one she says, dumbass effing white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.
In one she says, are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins?
And another where she says, oh man, it's kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.
This tactic of digging through someone's past is prevalent.
And recently, we saw the firing of James Gunn, and many comedians come out and say, look, offensive jokes should be okay.
So the question then becomes, is she joking here, or are these serious statements?
I think some of the tweets are obvious jokes.
She's being facetious when she talks about things like white genocide.
But some of the things, I have to wonder whether or not they're jokes at all.
And the other thing is, she's not a comedian.
She's a writer, journalist, and lawyer.
In which case, I wouldn't assume she's trying to be funny.
I'd have to assume she's actually being serious.
And so there's concern, based on her past, that she will bring these kind of identitarian values into the New York Times.
And the New York Times says that the editorial board is composed of journalists with wide-ranging areas of expertise.
Their primary responsibility is to write the Times editorials, which represent the voice of the board, its editors, and the publisher.
The board is part of the opinion department, which is operated separately from the Times newsroom, and includes the letters to the editor and the op-ed sections.
So naturally, white identitarians are angry that someone like this would be hired to the New York Times espousing these anti-white identitarian values, and people who are anti-identitarian are concerned that she is identitarian and bringing her opinions to the New York Times.
Now, I need to explain to you the word identitarian because I think a lot of people don't understand it.
Oxford defines it as, Relating to or supporting the political interests of a
particular racial ethnic or national group, typically one composed of Europeans or white people.
And the reason they say typically concerning white people is because right-wing and white identitarians
tend to embrace the term identitarian.
However, people on the left don't really call themselves that.
They don't really necessarily have a word for what they are, though they embrace identity politics.
And when they support the values of particular ethnic or racial groups, that is an identitarian value.
And thus, anti-identitarians, people who don't like identitarian politics, are concerned that this woman is going to bring these kinds of race-based ideas to the New York Times.
The Federalist wrote an article highlighting many of her tweets, titled, New York Times Hires Left-Wing Writer with Long History of Racist Tweets.
The New York Times editorial board on Monday announced the hiring of Sarah Zhang, a left-wing writer with a long trail of racist tweets.
They highlight a few of the tweets I've already read, such as asking if white people are genetically predisposed to burning faster, and then calling them groveling goblins.
The one where she calls them dumbass effing white people.
But then there's this tweet where she shows a chart that as you become more white, you also become more awful.
Another tweet where she says, Theoretically, you can't be racist against white people,
but lol, how else to describe the weird dog smell rumor.
Racism is defined on Google as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against
someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
And thus, this is where we have a debate as to whether or not she's racist.
Is she saying that her race is superior to white people or that white people are inferior?
Some people argue she's not.
The left views racism as prejudice plus power, therefore she feels she can't be racist towards white people, and many people on the right tend to use the word racism to define being prejudicial against someone based on race.
Aside from calling white people groveling goblins, and saying white men are bullshit, she also adds, it must be so boring to be white.
If she's going to make derogatory statements about white people calling them boring, calling them bullshit, saying cancel white people, I'd have to imagine she holds them in a less than favorable light, or genuinely believes white people are inferior in some way.
And at noon, the New York Times issued this official statement.
our statement in response to criticism of the hiring of Sarah Zhang.
We hired Sarah Zhang because of the exceptional work she has done covering the internet and
technology at a range of respected publications. Her journalism and the fact that she is a young
Asian woman have made her a subject of frequent online harassment. For a period of time,
she responded to that harassment by imitating the rhetoric of her harassers. She sees now that this
approach only served to feed the vitriol that we too often see on social media. She regrets it,
and the Times does not condone it. We had candid conversations with Sarah as part of our thorough
vetting process, which include a review of her social media history. She understands that this
type of rhetoric is not acceptable at the Times, and we are confident that she will be an important
voice for the editorial board moving forward. And there's an issue with this.
Because the New York Times fired Quinn Norton over statements she made several years ago as well.
It would seem like there might be a double standard.
In the issue of Quinn Norton, she was brought on to be an op-ed writer, but because she used certain language, certain words that were deemed offensive, she was let go.
There was also concerns that she was friends with people who are alt-right or white supremacists.
Quinn Norton defends this by saying, by being friends with these people, she can try to pull them away, and has staunchly advocated for them to change their ways, and that the language she used was the language of 4chan and hacker communities, in which she has to be a part of if she wants to have respect with these people and communicate effectively.
But even though she had real reasons for what she did, it wasn't considered enough.
In this instance, Sarah Zhang made several statements in the other direction, attacking white people, and the New York Times has come to her defense.
It could be that the New York Times is biased, and they're going to support someone who is left-wing or more likely to align with certain left-wing values.
Or it could be that the New York Times is tired of bending over backwards to outrage mobs.
In any case, this is more evidence to suggest that the outrage mob tactics are slowly not working.
It is possible that they just didn't work in this instance because the New York Times doesn't care about what conservatives think.
But I believe, based on what we saw in the past week, where comedians have refused to apologize, it's possible that outrage mob tactics are no longer effective because people just...
It just doesn't work.
Even if you agree with the mob and apologize, they will still be mad.
And in many instances, the outrage mob doesn't actually care about you or your product in the first place, so you're just spinning your wheels and wasting your time.
Sarah Zhang issued a statement where she said, While it was intended as satire, I deeply regret that I mimicked the language of my harassers.
These comments were not aimed at a general audience, because general audiences do not engage in harassment campaigns.
I can understand how hurtful these posts are out of context, and I would not do it again.
But the question becomes, does context matter?
Because, as she stated, she wasn't making jokes, she was actually trolling.
She calls it counter-trolling.
But, in reality, she was making general statements on Twitter, which would mean she was literally posting these statements to get a rise out of people.
That's no different than a racist posting racist comments to get a rise out of people.
Just because she was targeting one group of people doesn't mean it's not offensive or somehow better than someone else's.
When comedians make offensive jokes, we understand they're trying to push buttons.
But this isn't a comedian.
This is a writer, who is now joining the New York Times, who has made several, I would dare say, racist statements because of her position and the things she said about white people.
In my opinion, I don't really accept her statement.
I don't believe she was counter-trolling.
I believe she was genuinely expressing her opinions.
I believe that she is very likely to be racist and is a left-wing identitarian.
Again, that's just what I think.
But some of the statements she made weren't really counter-trolling.
That explanation, I don't think it fits.
She's not tweeting specifically to people in many of these instances.
Calling white people groveling goblins isn't counter-trolling when you're targeting an entire demographic, an entire race.
In fact, in one tweet where she said, I dare you to get on Wikipedia and play things white people can definitely take credit for, it's really hard.
Have you ever tried to figure out all the things that white people are allowed to do that aren't cultural appropriation?
There's literally nothing.
Again, it's one thing if she was tweeting at someone in response to someone.
If she was tweeting at someone who said something to her about why white people are good and then she countered with this.
But many of the tweets are just blanket tweets directed at no one that are just offensive and racist.
Obviously, the opinions of people are split pretty dramatically among those who support this person and oppose this person, because that's the culture war.
That's identitarianism.
Too many people are either anti-white or white identitarians.
In this instance, it is my opinion that Sarah Zhang is a left-wing identitarian.
That she supports identity politics, and her tweets weren't directed at, for the most part, they weren't directed at people.
She was just making these blanket statements.
And the New York Times has come to her defense, so we'll see what happens.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
Is this the New York Times being hypocritical?
Are they just defending Sarah Zhang because she supports left-wing politics?
Or is it that they're tired of outrage mob mentality and they just, they're not going to bend to the will of the mob anymore?
Comment below, we'll keep the conversation going.
You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast.
Stay tuned, new videos every day at 4 p.m.
and new videos on my second channel, youtube.com slash TimCastNews at 6 p.m.
