The Latest In Ugly Public Nudity
David Mikics has a piece at Tablet about "the creepy personal and ideological logic of public confessions," starting with Soviet ones:
And here I stand before you in filth, crushed by my own crimes," confessed Yuri Pyatakov in January 1937, "bereft of everything through my own fault, a man who has lost his Party, who has no friends, who has lost his family, who has lost his very self." Pyatakov, once the head of the Soviet State Bank, admitted his crimes of Trotskyism and Hitlerism after a month of being tortured by an old friend, Nikolai Yezhov, head of the NKVD.
More recently, there's this:
Last Friday, Donald G. McNeil Jr., a science reporter for The New York Times since 1976, and one of the mainstays of the paper's coverage of the coronavirus pandemic--a matter of life and death for millions of people around the planet--was forced to leave the paper. "Dean and Joe" (Dean Baquet, the paper's executive editor, and Joe Kahn, managing editor) announced to Times staffers that McNeil had cited a racial slur in a conversation with two high school students, and therefore had to go, since "We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent" (italics mine; I will come back to those words later). The editors then helpfully appended McNeil's resignation letter to their email:To the staff of The Times:
On a 2019 New York Times trip to Peru for high school students, I was asked at dinner by a student whether I thought a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video she had made as a 12-year-old in which she used a racial slur.
To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself.
I should not have done that. Originally, I thought the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended.I now realize that it cannot. It is deeply offensive and hurtful. The fact that I even thought I could defend it itself showed extraordinarily bad judgement. For that I apologize.
To the students on the trip, I also extend my sincerest apology. But my apology needs to be broader than that.My lapse of judgment has hurt my colleagues in Science, the hundreds of people who trusted me to work with them closely during this pandemic, the team at "The Daily" that turned to me during this frightening year, and the whole institution, which put its confidence in me and expected better.
So for offending my colleagues--and for anything I've done to hurt The Times, which is an institution I love and whose mission I believe in and try to serve--I am sorry. I let you all down.
Donald G. McNeil Jr.
These days we repeatedly confess our racism and misogyny, suppressing any sense that we are perhaps not as sinful as we are told. Maybe we haven't harassed, demeaned, or insulted anyone--but the very impulse to defend ourselves indicates our guilt. After all, we are all part of "the system," and only a thoroughgoing racist would dispute the idea that the system is guilty.Of course, America is not Soviet Russia, or, for that matter, Xi's China. Our new political commissars don't use torture, prison cells, and executions. Today's woke ideology can be publicly attacked, unlike communism in the Soviet Union. Its critics are in fact legion: According to polls, most Americans of all genders and ethnicities think political correctness is a problem. But people are afraid for their careers, and so they remain silent--no matter how much "power" or "privilege" they ostensibly have.
For those who believe in the power of institutions to moderate the ideologically driven madness of this moment, the most worrisome aspect of McNeil's firing is the about-face of Dean Baquet, the paper's editor. At first Baquet had declared, after an HR investigation of the Peru trip, that McNeil would stay. "He showed extremely poor judgment, but it did not appear to me ... that his intentions were hateful or malicious," Baquet wrote. While one can quibble with the word "extremely"--a sop to the woke--the editor's decision was surely a reasonable one, given McNeil's decades of meritorious service and the paper's presumed need to provide its readers with informed reporting on the coronavirus crisis.
Yet a few days later, Baquet abruptly reversed himself, and McNeil was fired. What changed? Had some new, damning piece of evidence surfaced? No, only a mob uprising, a familiar phenomenon at the Times of late. On Wednesday afternoon 150 Times staffers wrote a letter to A.G. Sulzberger demanding McNeil's ouster. "Our community is outraged and in pain," they lamented like the chorus of a Greek play. Oh, the fragility of the masses when they are set on vengeance!
"Our harassment training makes clear that what matters is how an act makes the victims feel," wrote the Times staffers. Even if McNeil "didn't act maliciously or with hateful intent," they added, that doesn't matter, since "intent is irrelevant." Instead, what matters is the "victim's" perception (fantasy? imagination?) of what happened. In other words, what had begun as a case about punishing stray bits of private conversation had become a contest over a very serious ideological precept--namely, the idea that the seriousness of a crime can and must be measured by its impact on its self-proclaimed victims. Anything can therefore be a crime, whose impact can in turn be beyond measure.
It's all about the feelz, and if they say you're guilty, you're guilty, and you'd better quit, beg forgiveness, and accept your exile from your social and career world and perhaps being able to earn a living.
I'm waiting for the person who tells the employer who calls for his or her head -- or tries to make it impossible for that person to do anything but to resign -- to do what Mikics wished McNeil had done: "tell The New York Times, and its publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, to go jump in a lake."
It's sickening. This is what happens when HAwthorne gets taken off the reading list.
NicoleK at February 16, 2021 10:34 PM
It's bullshit, carefully crafted to perpetuate victim's virtue and enable moneygrubbing. It will always be hidden from you that if you are confident as a result of your own achievements, you cannot be denigrated - slurs simply do not work then.
Radwaste at February 17, 2021 4:28 AM
Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if the young lady who started the conversation (from Phillips Andover, I believe and currently Ivy League) been met with a blank stare and a response of “I don’t use that word. “? And then when she continued to use it and discuss it, in tones suited to dealing with a 3 year old, some version of: “Adults don’t use that language if they want to be considered polite ...“
The other important part of “regardless of intent” is that although he didn’t call anyone the word, or use it personally in any way. Next shall we cancel people for knowing that the word exists? How about any other knowledge?
Cindy at February 17, 2021 8:37 AM
To me, it's telling that no one has come forward and said, "Oh, yeah, Don talked like that all the time."
Mr. McNeil sarcastically used the term "recovered memory" in an email regarding this, and I made the connection that our current cultural spasm isn't much different than the "recovered memory" spasm of the 1980s, or the Satanists Are Molesting Our Children at Preschool hysteria of the same time.
I have personal experience with this; a family member who made exceedingly poor choices throughout her young life eventually went to a "recovered memory" counselor and became convinced that another family member had diddled her when she was young, though she couldn't remember it. It split the family forever, and her recanting of the accusation — 25 years later — was far too little and far too late to make any difference.
Kevin at February 17, 2021 11:51 AM
Not unrelated, the white woman who accused the black birdwatcher of threatening her has now completed her "re-education" and the media has been repeating this story several times in the last few days.
It seems the media, and others, are taking pride in destroying this young woman's life. Although, they didn't get to burn the witch they are certainly gleeful that they got the witch to repent her sins!
Truthfully, she did the right thing in calling the cops on a man who told her (his words, not hers) "well, if we can all do what we want, then I am going to do what I want and you will not like it."
That is a threat when said by a man to a woman he doesn't know in a remote location with no one else around.
charles at February 17, 2021 1:10 PM
Charles:
Sort of yes, sort of no. And what Christian Cooper said is, "Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it."
Yes, I did note that his cryptic language can be reasonably construed as a threat. And when he followed this up by proffering doggie-treats, she had every right to be concerned. She doesn't know the man and for all she knows, he could have been planning to poison her dog.
On the other hand, she had unleashed her dog in an area where that isn't permitted. And when he requested that she leash her dog and reminded her that there were areas where she could unleash her dog, he was met basically with "Fuck you."
She didn't feel so threatened that she was unable to approach him and point the finger in his face, then spitefully sneer that she was going to call the police and tell them that there was an African-American man threatening her life. To say nothing of her affected shrieks of terror.
And of course, she nearly strangled her dog.
Put the damned dog on the leash, Karen. You ain't special. You ain't privileged. The rules apply to you, too. He is there to watch birds. Your dog is a bird dog and is scaring the birds away. No big deal, you say? His chosen activity is allowed in that area of the park. Yours isn't.
Patrick at February 17, 2021 3:06 PM
She deserved a fine for not having her dog on a leash. Or whatever the punishment is. She was obnoxious and entitled. He would have been reasonable to report her.
The next question, though, is unrelated to her obnoxiousness. Is it reasonable to call the cops on a guy who says, "I'm gonna do what I want and you're not going to like it" in a remote location, who then calls your dog?
NicoleK at February 18, 2021 1:19 AM
Supposedly, it is a third-degree felony to offer food to a stranger's dog.
Under the circumstances, she was within her rights to call the police. However, she claimed he was threatening her, which was a naked lie (and probably why she was charged with filing a false police report).
Could she have legitimately felt threatened by some unspoken action he committed? Not in her case. She got within six feet of him and pointed a finger in his face, not the actions of someone who feels legitimately threatened.
Moreover, she plainly stated that she objected to his recording of her, which he is allowed to do. There is no expectation of privacy in public areas. And while still very close to him. She matter-of-factly stated that she was going to call the police and tell them that there was an African-American man threatening her life.
This was not because of any threats he might have made. This was clearly a retaliatory and malicious act. This vindictive bitch was obviously treating the police like her personal bodyguards to take care of (black) men who don't do like Her Majesty commands.
It wasn't, "You have no right to do this! I'm calling the police!" It was, "I'll fix you, you bastard!"
And while this might be harder to pin down in concrete terms, she resorted to hysterical screaming as if she feared imminent bodily harm when, in fact, he made no movement toward her. Her own actions do not indicate she felt threatened.
I maintain that any judge who watched that video would have had no problem throwing the book at her.
Patrick at February 18, 2021 3:40 AM
If someone unknown to you approached your pet to feed it God-knows-what, would you be cool with it?
Crid at February 18, 2021 9:12 AM
Gee, I don’t think I would be cool with that at all. Evidently, Christian Cooper is the bad guy in this situation.
Perhaps if Amy Cooper’s dog were an aggressive pit bull. Or Christian Cooper wanted todo something other than birdwatch.
Perhaps if he had a more macho pastime.
Are you okay with unleashed dogs in an area where the signs clearly state they must be leashed? And said dog is interfering with your enjoyment of a public park?
And returning to the example of the aggressive pit bull, you’ll have to be okay with that, too. Because if Her Royal Amyness of Cooperdom is allowed to do this, then so is everyone else with a dog is also allowed.
And are you also okay with politely asking someone to observe the rules so that you can enjoy the park, reminding her that there is an area where she can unleash her dog and basically being told to get fucked?
And finally, are you also okay with sneering threats to call the police and lie to them because you’re observing your right to video record?
Is all that okay?
Patrick at February 18, 2021 3:40 PM
Sorry about the ungrammatical mess. I’m using my phone to type my responses.
But while I’m here, just to remind you of some things:
1) He didn’t call the police. Amy did.
2) He didn’t post his video to the internet. His sister did.
3) He may have saved Amy from getting in worse trouble, because he refused to cooperate with the investigation.
4) Amy threatened to call the police and tell them that an African-American man was threatening her life. Yes, she specifically said an African-American man and yes, she did lie and say that he was threatening her life. Please don’t embarrass yourselves by suggesting that she didn’t understand the racial implications of what she was doing.
So, can we forgive Christian or should we hire mercenaries to bring back his head on a pikestaff?
Patrick at February 18, 2021 4:18 PM
Are they muscular mercenariesses in strappy leather outfits, fully oiled and gleaming, bulging in all the right places?
Or just those fat Santa-bearded Michigan militia guys wheezing their way onto their Rascal scooters?
Asking for a friend.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 18, 2021 5:45 PM
Patrick, no strong opinion about the big picture here. It was a couple of years ago (wasn't it?), and I saw maybe part of a video once, and thought This woman is Ritz Crackers. Then someone said that after some exchange between the two of them, he'd tried to feed something to her dog, and that's when she went zombie. It was only in recent years that I'd spent close time with dog owners, with fresh understanding just how threatening that would be to them. And there were more wrinkles and details and it went on (in social media) for awhile. So it was the freak-of-the-day story... Like Cruz in Cancun was on Friday.
If you'd asked two days ago, I'd have described it as one of those 𝓥𝓮𝓻𝔂 𝓢𝓹𝓮𝓬𝓲𝓪𝓵 𝓣𝓪𝓵𝓮𝓼 𝓸𝓯 𝓖𝓸𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓶™, wherein two people seeking bliss or misery reach out into that very special metropolis at the same darling moment, find each other, and taste their fate.
Crid at February 19, 2021 5:58 PM
I don't think he was a bad guy, I think he was a dumb guy not to know how that sounded like a threat. I don't care how much of a genius he is in the rest of his bird-watching life, if some guy said to me, in an isolated location, "I'm gonna do something you aren't gonna like" I would probably be screaming my head off. I have a very shrill scream.
NicoleK at February 21, 2021 10:33 AM
I don't think he was a bad guy, I think he was a dumb guy not to know how that sounded like a threat. I don't care how much of a genius he is in the rest of his bird-watching life, if some guy said to me, in an isolated location, "I'm gonna do something you aren't gonna like" I would probably be screaming my head off.
NicoleK at February 21, 2021 11:14 AM
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