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Resignation Letter

bariweiss.com

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Re: Resignation Letter

#221

Post by jimbokun »

some-guy wrote: post #121
deschutes wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with the controversy, so I went looking for actual views of said professors. Wikipedia states 'Massad has characterized Israel as "a racist Jewish state."' There might be more to this story than Glenn Greenwald frothing at the mouth.

And yet, if I'm reading Weiss's resignation letter correctly, you would think that Massad should not be fired for that characterization.

Was he fired? Tried scanning Greenwald’s article, but didn’t see that mentioned.

Re: Resignation Letter

#222

Post by jkingsbery »

slg wrote: post #5

It always amazes me when the people who champion "the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society" will also turn around and say something like their political beliefs being mocking by coworkers is "unlawful discrimination". She doesn't want free speech. She wants consequence free speech. She wants her detractors silenced by the law. What a hypocrite.

> They have called me a Nazi and a racist;

> others post ax emojis next to my name.

> Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter

From how I read the letter, she's not looking for consequence-free speech. She's looking to not be attacked personally for what are beliefs that are not all that far out there. Since I stopped reading the Times a long while ago for exactly the reasons she stated ("it didn’t have a firm grasp of the country it covers"), I haven't read anything from her before today. From what I can tell, she advances arguments for points of view that are reasonable and that one may choose to disagree with if one wishes, but she has not expressed opinions worthy of threats of violence.

Re: Resignation Letter

#223

Post by seibelj »

minikites wrote: post #205
seibelj wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

58% of Americans supported sending in the military to stop looting and property destruction, including 37% of African Americans (a sizable minority). I would assume they wanted to prevent the city being burnt down rather than stop non-violent protests. https://www.newsweek.com/majority-americans-support-calling-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/02/58-o... When the protests are peaceful, you don…

A majority of Americans supported the shooting of students at Kent State at the time, Americans are always thirsty for blood. That's not a compelling argument. >Some [students] were told that more students should have been killed to teach student protesters a lesson; some students were disowned by their families.

I think giving a platform to someone who is a sitting US Senator, who has an argument supported by the majority of Americans, in the supposed Newspaper of Record, isn't the craziest thing ever decided and should not have led to the editor's firing.

Re: Resignation Letter

#224

Post by easterncalculus »

seppin wrote: post #164
asdf21 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly right. Something like 97% of news coverage is critical towards Trump. I'm not sure what that number should be, but 97% seems like there is a deeper and systemic issue.

If by critical you mean reporting what he does and what he says, then yes. That's probably around 97%. Why you think the above is somehow editorialized, I don't know. I think most mainstream news outlets do an incredible job maintaining their calm while reporting truly absurd and dangerously ignorant actions of the current US President.

Question: Have you watched the news, instead of just reading it online?

You can't go to any outlet (CNN, MSNBC, NBC, even Fox) without a couple snippets of dialogue from whatever's been recorded and then five or so 'experts' editorializing it.

Re: Resignation Letter

#225

Post by arrosenberg »

LegitShady wrote: post #24
alecb wrote: post #4

There's several layers of irony here, chief of which Bari Weiss headed a very vocal campaign to fire anyone at Colombia who didn't exist on the far-right on Israel/Palestine - and of course, falsely painted several professors as racist and anti-Semitic: https://theintercept.com/2018/03/08/the-nyts-bari-weiss-fals...

There are many things I disagree with Weiss on, including her previous flirtation with cancel culture, but by attacking her with an article from 2 years ago instead of addressing what she is talking about directly is not really honest debate. There is a cleaving point coming for those who believe in Liberal values and the nyt has already chosen the side of extreme ideological orthodoxy.

> There is a cleaving point coming for those who believe in Liberal values and the nyt has already chosen the side of extreme ideological orthodoxy.

I wouldn't say they chose it - under shareholder capitalism, they are beholden to maximizing the returns for their investors. Conservatives who like Bari Weiss (do such people exist?) probably aren't subscribing to the NY Times, while people who despise Bari Weiss and Tom Cotton are cancelling their subscriptions in protest.

Re: Resignation Letter

#226

Post by aaronbwebber »

seibelj wrote: post #143
chasing wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, please. If you say dumb or offensive stuff, people are going to react. It's not the "right think regime" — it's people disagreeing, often with some extra acid if you're a high profile New York Times opinion columnist and readers don't feel you deserve that kind of an international platform for your words.

I disagree. Saying you agree with free speech, such as the Harper's Letter which is about as milquetoast and generic as it gets, is viciously attacked on the left for being racist, anti-trans, the authors are scum, anyone who signs it should be fired, and on and on. As a testament to the existence of cancel culture and the stifling of any opinion against the party line in the progressive media, I can't think of a mor…

But I don't think anybody did get fired? Who of the signees of the Harpers letter is actually being hurt? Even if they _were_ fired, why is that bad? Most of the people who signed that letter are professional writers in some form or another, and their job is to write stuff that people want to read. If people don't want to read it anymore because they write dumb stuff or sign their name to stupid letters, how is that anymore an issue of free speech than if I got fired for writing buggy code or insistently arguing that we should be coding everything in Perl 4?

You can say all kinds of dumb shit and sign your name to stupid letters and other people get to call for you to be fired, and maybe you will be! Even after that, you can continue saying dumb shit and signing your name to stupid letters, and I can go write buggy Perl 4 code, and nobody can stop us! Your dumb letters might not get published in national magazines and I probably won't get paid much for my code but in neither case is this a violation of our free speech rights.

Re: Resignation Letter

#227

Post by specialist »

seibelj wrote: post #30
jakelazaroff wrote: post #7

> All this bodes ill, especially for independent-minded young writers and editors paying close attention to what they’ll have to do to advance in their careers. Rule One: Speak your mind at your own peril. Rule Two: Never risk commissioning a story that goes against the narrative. Rule Three: Never believe an editor or publisher who urges you to go against the grain. Eventually, the publisher will cave to the mob, th…

This is the latest argument from people who claim cancel culture doesn't exist. "How are you being silenced when everyone will read it from your high perch?" High-level writers need to push back against illiberal and anti-free speech proponents to give cover for the lower ranks. If even the top tier writers can't speak their mind, does the lowly intern or new hire stand a chance?

"Cancel culture" has always existed. Socrates was literally canceled. And we're still talking about him.

Any one challenging power should probably play to win.

Edit: Spoiler for all the kids: Your generation didn't invite sex either.

Re: Resignation Letter

#228

Post by huzaif »

seibelj wrote: post #179
minikites wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think the entire op-ed that consists of "send in the military to slaughter tens of thousands of people protesting institutional racism" is racist?

58% of Americans supported sending in the military to stop looting and property destruction, including 37% of African Americans (a sizable minority). I would assume they wanted to prevent the city being burnt down rather than stop non-violent protests. https://www.newsweek.com/majority-americans-support-calling-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/02/58-o... When the protests are peaceful, you don…

That sizable minority are the only ones who have anything to lose from the looting and property destruction. Those that are impacted by racism and police violence, people without homes or jobs, likely don't want any Military involvement.

Here is a pretty powerful message: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoDeVpvuEzI

Re: Resignation Letter

#229

Post by seibelj »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #183
seibelj wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than criticize the content of the letter, you attack Harper's for not paying interns, which is unrelated to the content. Classic tactic for silencing disagreement is to attack the source. What do you disagree with in the Harper's letter itself (the content, not the publication or the signatories), and why?

Initially, I was criticizing the content, which is on its face false: we are discussing multiple widely–read pieces from prominent people who claim they are being "canceled" for their views. You claimed that they are speaking out for the benefit of less powerful writers. Since the goalposts have shifted to their intentions , attacking the source is absolutely relevant. I simply don't believe those intentions, given t…

What do you disagree with in the Harper's letter itself (the content, not the publication or the signatories), and why?

I assume you also support the letter, if it had appeared in a publication you approved of?

Re: Resignation Letter

#230

Post by [deleted] »

quotemstr wrote: post #174
tomjakubowski wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your coworkers and people on Twitter making fun of you isn't comparable to McCarthyism.

Being barred from employment in your industry due to your non-work-related political opinion and affiliations is literally McCarthyism though.

[deleted]
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