After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways • Hacker News Board

Re: After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways

#31

Post by fred_is_fred » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:23 PM UTC

azangru wrote: post #26

fred_is_fred wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop being an apologist. Based on what she's said in the past, she's a racist and a homophobe. It's not a total stretch to see that she's friends with Nazis because maybe she believes in what they are saying. Are any of you friends with Nazis? I can barely deal with my racist in-laws in Texas, so I have no idea how you could be friends with a Nazi. Her words that she spoke back when she wasn't under the microscope ar…

> I can barely deal with my racist in-laws in Texas, so I have no idea how you could be friends with a Nazi Aren't there lots of interactions that people can have with each other besides discussing topics such as race, or nation, (or gender, or sexuality)? Why are people so willing to define themselves by their stance on any of these particular topics, to the point of being openly hostile to people with other positio…

Because for people who define themselves in a certain way and literally watch Fox News from sun-up to sun-down its so core to their identity that you cannot discuss ANYTHING without it being about this stuff. I was told last time (Thanksgiving) that it wasn't fair that there wasn't a White Friday too the day after Thanksgiving. And god forbid we discuss sports, or the news, or the weather (climate change is a lie you see), how to raise kids, etc. There's literally nothing to talk about because of how core to their identity being a "down-trodden" put-upon middle-class white person is.

Re: After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways

#32

Post by maxerickson » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

fred_is_fred wrote: post #8

meri_dian wrote: post #2

Something she had to say about herself... "For those of you honestly concerned. I don't support weev, that's not given in how I define friendship. I believe white folks should engage with the racists in their life … and I believe all people are redeemable, and "all people" is all people." That's an admirable perspective. She is clearly not racist or anything else herself. She is a casualty of the reactionary zeitgeis…

Stop being an apologist. Based on what she's said in the past, she's a racist and a homophobe. It's not a total stretch to see that she's friends with Nazis because maybe she believes in what they are saying. Are any of you friends with Nazis? I can barely deal with my racist in-laws in Texas, so I have no idea how you could be friends with a Nazi. Her words that she spoke back when she wasn't under the microscope ar…

It's like MLK said in another of his famous oratories, love your enemies and pepper your speech with ironic slurs.

Re: After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways

#33

Post by meri_dian » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #21

fred_is_fred wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: removed since apparaently it was a RT

Wasn't that was a retweet (the good ole-fashioned retweet, starting with "RT")? It looks like it was a retweet from John Barlow, the founder of the EFF. And it was definitely sarcastic, in nature. If you remove the loaded language, it's a bit easier to parse, I think: "If a black man was meant to talk to our schoolchildren, God would've made one President. Oh, wait, he did." Ergo, a black man was, indeed, meant to ta…

That's exactly how I interpreted it as well. It is unwise to use slurs regardless of intent, because people are sensitive to them and rightly so. But her intent in using them was not to hurt or belittle.

Re: After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways

#34

Post by berberous » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

fred_is_fred wrote: post #12

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to me that she was mostly using words which are offensive, but frequently used outside of their intended meaning. Definitely language I wouldn't use myself. But for example, "that's gay" has been relatively often used as an insult/derogatory, inadvertently by people not intending to be homophobic. I'd definitely call out it's use today, but I'm not sure I'd hunt someone down and try to ruin their career ov…

Edit: removed since apparaently it was a RT

In her own words via Twitter: “I retweeted @JPBarlow using offensive language in a sarcastic tweet that was meant to slap back at racists after Obama's first election. Eh, not my best retweet, even if the intentions, both mine and Barlow's, were in the right place.”

Reading the RT itself, I think it’s clear she is AGAINST racism.

Re: After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways

#35

Post by olympus » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

dirtyhand wrote: post #20

The smart thing to do here is build a Twitter background check app and sell a subscription to the NYTimes.

This is a pretty good idea. Something that scans tweets and other publicly accessible social media for a list of known words and then compiles it into a report for potential employers would go gangbusters in the HR/hiring areas. It obviously couldn't get everything, but would be a big help for employers.

Re: After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways

#36

Post by zerb » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

econnors wrote: post #13

meri_dian wrote: post #2

Something she had to say about herself... "For those of you honestly concerned. I don't support weev, that's not given in how I define friendship. I believe white folks should engage with the racists in their life … and I believe all people are redeemable, and "all people" is all people." That's an admirable perspective. She is clearly not racist or anything else herself. She is a casualty of the reactionary zeitgeis…

There's a difference between engaging with people who have different viewpoints and being friends with them. I consider friendship to be an endorsement of the other person. Same for "loving your enemies". MLK is advocating for peaceful protest here, not saying that you should excuse and forget your enemy's actions. I'm not sure I agree with any argument made in favor of being friends with white supremacists. Defend t…

There's an Italian proverb that "one can never have a friend if one must have one without faults". Obviously, the degree of the faults matters, but your implication that friendship is a tacit endorsement of all the complexities of a person is extreme.

Edit: I feel this also applies to politicians. Sometimes I just dislike all the candidates for a given election, but for different reasons. And I have to choose which of my principles I value the most. It's awful! But it's reality.

Re: After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways

#37

Post by zerb » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:30 PM UTC

meri_dian wrote: post #25

zerb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly. 2016 is evidence of what happens when you don't listen to people you disagree with. Lower class whites are disproportionally-likely to have "deplorable" views. Yet even as we as a society move to bring education to more and more people, still this demographic has become the last remaining group of people that it's "OK" to hate. So they've reacted. Disclaimers: Obviously, not everyone who's a lower-income w…

I believe it's important to put racism and hate in their contexts. Often times people are racist or discriminatory because they fear, either for their own way of life being eroded or because they don't understand the "other". This does not mean those attitudes are good. Far from it. But we must try to empathize with all people. Which is much easier to do when, as MLK advocated, we love all people.

Oh, that's another great point. There are different kinds of racism.

There's a great video from the 80s called "The Color of Fear" which has a bunch of randomly-chosen people of various ethnicities put into a room, who slowly start to talk about more and more uncomfortable subjects.

There's fear. There's lack of empathy for problems which don't affect you personally. There's even outright hate. These are different problems with different solutions.

Re: After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways

#38

Post by gadders » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:31 PM UTC

Can we just stop these twitter outrage storms now? I don't care any more if the "victim" of the storm is left-wing, right-wing, SJW or fascist. Can't we have a truce on this stuff? It's pointless and achieves nothing but to help a few outrage-merchants get off.

Re: After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways

#39

Post by ghaff » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #10

meri_dian wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ny-times-quinn-norton-n...

This seems to me that she was mostly using words which are offensive, but frequently used outside of their intended meaning. Definitely language I wouldn't use myself. But for example, "that's gay" has been relatively often used as an insult/derogatory, inadvertently by people not intending to be homophobic. I'd definitely call out it's use today, but I'm not sure I'd hunt someone down and try to ruin their career ov…

I mostly agree but it's also understandable on the part of the NYT. She wasn't really even on board yet so this probably counts as one of those battles that isn't worth fighting even if they they wanted to.

Not that it really pertains in this case, but personally, I'm pretty glad that there was no social media prior to my being an established adult professional in a role that made me very aware anything I wrote was out there for all to see and interpret.

Re: After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways

#40

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #39

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to me that she was mostly using words which are offensive, but frequently used outside of their intended meaning. Definitely language I wouldn't use myself. But for example, "that's gay" has been relatively often used as an insult/derogatory, inadvertently by people not intending to be homophobic. I'd definitely call out it's use today, but I'm not sure I'd hunt someone down and try to ruin their career ov…

I mostly agree but it's also understandable on the part of the NYT. She wasn't really even on board yet so this probably counts as one of those battles that isn't worth fighting even if they they wanted to. Not that it really pertains in this case, but personally, I'm pretty glad that there was no social media prior to my being an established adult professional in a role that made me very aware anything I wrote was o…

Indeed. I don't think Norton is a racist/homephobe, I do think she made poor choices with her social media presence for her career. And while I don't think she should lose her job because of five year old tweets that aren't the greatest, I understand where NYTimes would be at: Their first and foremost responsibility is to their brand and reputation.