A Tale of Two Tweets

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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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Please help me to understand something. Is a racist remark only considered racist if a white person utters it? What is it called when an Asian makes a bigoted remark about a white person? Or hundreds of them?

The New York Times offered the following response to the internet frenzy which ensued when the twitter history of the newest hire to their editorial board was made public.

Our statement in response to criticism of the hiring of Sarah Jeong. pic.twitter.com/WryIgbaoqg

— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) August 2, 2018

For those few who may have missed it, here is a sampling of Jeong’s tweets:

Are these racist?
These are tweets by Sarah Jeong who was just hired to the NYT editorial board. pic.twitter.com/B3P7ay8QNR

— Armin Navabi (@ArminNavabi) August 2, 2018

On May 29, comedian Roseanne Barr posted the following tweet (now deleted): “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.”

Barr was referring to Jarrett, who is black and was born in Iran.

The tweet was racist and insulting and the swift and severe backlash was deserved. Barr immediately issued an apology.

In the midst of the public uproar, Barr’s tremendously popular show was canceled by ABC Entertainment: “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”

Barr was also dropped by her talent agency, ICM Partners, who announced in a statement that her “disgraceful and unacceptable tweet” was “antithetical to our core values, both as individuals and as an agency. Consequently, we have notified her that we will not represent her.”

Imagine, if instead of immediately throwing Roseanne Barr under the bus and canceling her wildly popular show, ABC had made a statement similar in tone to that of the New York Times. A statement that acknowledged the wrong Barr had committed, offered an excuse for why she may have composed the tweet and made clear that Barr had apologized and now understood the error of her ways. Something like this:

Statement from ABC Entertainment:

We hired Roseanne Barr because of her extraordinary talent and her immense appeal to so many Americans.

Her recent “coming out” as a white, Trump-supporting, conservative-leaning female has made her a target of criticism by many overzealous, left-wing fanatics in the Hollywood community. One night, she responded to that criticism by impulsively sending out an insulting, racist tweet targeting former Obama advisor, Valerie Jarrett.

She regrets it, and this network does not condone it.

We’ve had candid conversations with Roseanne. She has issued an apology. She understands that this type of rhetoric is not acceptable at ABC Entertainment and we are confident that her program will remain an popular part of our network line-up going forward.

Liberal heads would explode.

Barr’s tweet was certainly racist, it was rude and it was shocking. But it was also impulsive. And it was an isolated event. (She was a frequent tweeter, but she did not make multiple racist comments.) And she  apologized.

Jeong’s tweets were also racist, rude and shocking. But, they were numerous and they occurred on a regular basis over a period of several years. This wasn’t just a tweet or two on a desperate day. The number and frequency of them indicate that this is Jeong’s worldview. She really, really doesn’t like white people – at all. And she certainly offers no apologies or excuses for it.

Jeong is now a 30-year-old woman. The most recent of her “racist” tweets (that I have seen) is dated November 2015, when she was 27. Most 27-year-olds know better than to voice opinions like this over the internet. How can she be given a pass on this?

The left has a never-ending tolerance for offensive liberal “shock” comedians. Think Samantha Bee, Michele Wolf, Kathy Griffin, Sasha Baron Cohen. And the same applies to offensive left leaning celebrities in general. Think Madonna, Johnny Depp, Peter Fonda, Robert DeNiro, etc. But one mistake from Roseanne, and I admit it was a doozy, and her career is over. Have we lost the capacity to forgive, even when someone admits fault and asks for forgiveness?

Surely, even the folks at the New York Times are aware of the double standard. They just dare anyone to raise the issue. Because anyone who would raise the issue is, of course, a racist.

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