
After Storm Over Tweets, The Times and a New Hire Part Ways - artur_makly
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/business/media/quinn-norton-new-york-times.html
======
meri_dian
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 zeitgeist.

Lest we all forget the words of one of the greatest Americans in history,
Martin Luther King Jr., here is a portion of his speech from Dexter Baptist
Church delivered in Montgomery Alabama in 1957:

"So I want to turn your attention to this subject: "Loving Your Enemies." It’s
so basic to me because it is a part of my basic philosophical and theological
orientation—the whole idea of love, the whole philosophy of love. In the fifth
chapter of the gospel as recorded by Saint Matthew, we read these very
arresting words flowing from the lips of our Lord and Master: "Ye have heard
that it has been said, ‘Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.’
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you; that ye may
be the children of your Father which is in heaven."

Certainly these are great words, words lifted to cosmic proportions. And over
the centuries, many persons have argued that this is an extremely difficult
command. Many would go so far as to say that it just isn’t possible to move
out into the actual practice of this glorious command. They would go on to say
that this is just additional proof that Jesus was an impractical idealist who
never quite came down to earth. So the arguments abound. But far from being an
impractical idealist, Jesus has become the practical realist. The words of
this text glitter in our eyes with a new urgency. Far from being the pious
injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the
survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our
civilization, love even for enemies."

~~~
econnors
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 their right to free speech and engage in debate?
Sure. But society should strongly condemn and criticize them for racist
thoughts and words. Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee you freedom from
consequence of those words.

~~~
ghthor
If you want to have no idea what your enemy is doing, then by all means cut
all types of communication with them. If you want to be caught unexpected by
the actions of your enemy, then by all means pay no attention to them. If you
want to be destroyed by your enemy, then by all means ignore and belittle them
as there is no faster way to your own destruction.

The most efficient way to understand and predict the actions of your enemy
then by befriending and walking among them.

~~~
scarface74
I have friends who lean toward the conservative side of libertarianism and I
lean more liberal, I have a friend who is the opposite politically from me in
almost every way but they all seem to believe that one shouldn't be judged by
their color or discriminated against. That's basically the only line I draw.

------
stevemk14ebr
I legitimately do not understand why people expose themselves on social media
like this! I was 12 or so when i got my first social media, and even back THEN
i knew that posting the wrong thing would get be in trouble with my friends,
parents, or even school. It blows my mind that full grown adults use such
devisive language in a public setting. You have to KNOW that what you are
doing is dumb and risky. Not to mention she works in writing, which is a job
that's at least partially about YOUR PUBLIC IMAGE, i mean really this is first
grade "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say it at
all...[ESPECIALLY IF YOUR LIVELYHOOD DEPEND ON YOUR IMAGE]"

Reading the comment by @meri_dian I initially thought "ok she had a non-pc
racist friend and supported them. Then by association she was deemed to risky
for NYTimes". That by itself is a not "character damning" to her, but you can
see how a company would want to distance themselves.

Then i read her actual tweets, where she actually called people slurs. That is
not defend-able, and I think she deserves it.

------
olympus
What a load of b.s. Since she engages with communities known for hateful
actions she must also be a hateful person and agree with all their thoughts?
If you have to dig all the way back to 2013 to find someone using the word
"fag" then that's not too bad. Nobody's perfect. Do we not allow for people's
attitudes to change over time, or is using the word "fag" once enough to brand
you a homophobe for life? Most gay men have used the word before. Or maybe,
just maybe, we need to examine the context in which a word is used.

There's an old story about a dude named Jesus that hung out with the
deplorables of his time, and it got him killed. Whether or not you believe it
actually happened it's got a good moral, and that is: The people in power
don't like the people who actually engage with the enemy, you might find that
they are people too, or you might actually persuade them to fix their evil
ways and then you can't hate them any more. They would rather sit in their
ivory towers and do nothing. When someone actually talks with people to try
and understand their mindset it makes those ivory tower dwellers look bad for
not actually doing anything.

------
CPLX
What were the actual racist and homophobic statements? Reading this article
the actual offending things are absent and not linked to.

~~~
meri_dian
[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ny-times-quinn-
norton-n...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ny-times-quinn-norton-
neonazis_us_5a837db8e4b0cf06751f8fbe)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
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 over them using language they shouldn't have five
years ago.

~~~
fred_is_fred
Edit: removed since apparaently it was a RT

~~~
ocdtrekkie
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 talk to our schoolchildren.

~~~
meri_dian
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.

------
tasty_freeze
Post some inflammatory things on your twitter account and it can come back to
bite you. But it is funny that it disqualifies her from writing opinion pieces
for a newspaper, while other people tweet far more outrageous things nearly
daily and can be President.

I'm not sure why some people get teflon and others don't.

~~~
fhood
> I'm not sure why some people get teflon and others don't.

In the unlikely case that that was not rhetorical, how much overlap do _you_
think there is between the nytimes readership and Trump's base?

~~~
zimpenfish
> how much overlap do you think there is between the nytimes readership and
> Trump's base?

More than you'd think, apparently, given their editorial stance that leans
heavily towards normalising his supporters and actions.

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

~~~
olympus
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.

~~~
ghaff
Sounds wonderful. /s An automated tool that disqualifies people from
employment for something ill-advised they once wrote in college based on a
naive algorithm.

ADDED: Of course, if you want to be an authentic disruptive Silicon Valley
startup you'd offer both this service and a service for end users to expunge
any online content that would be flagged by their employer service. Should be
good for some fawning tech press writeups.

~~~
olympus
I'm sure people that don't get a job because of something they said in the
past wouldn't like it. I don't really like the idea of not hiring someone
based on behavior far in the past (recent public behavior on social media is
fair game in my mind).

However, in terms of a startup product that companies would pay for, I stand
by my claim that it's a great idea. After all, HN is ran by yCombinator and
startups are kind if its thing.

------
jancsika
> Some of my friend are terrible people, & also my friends.

That's a really big deal. And for most people, that situation is a)
unfortunate, b) unwelcome, and c) confusing in the extreme. People talk a lot
with close friends about such a situation just to get a handle on it, to
remain honest about the affection they feel while refraining from apologizing
for the terrible person's behavior. It's usually painful to come to terms with
it. Especially if the terrible person still acts _unapologetically_ to hurt
other people.

No one I know tweets casually about something like that, much less humble
brags about the terrible person friends they've collected.

------
FLUX-YOU
The only thing left for these comments is something along the lines of "Now I
know people on HN are smarter than average..."

------
gadders
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.

------
harrumph
This is about treating someone who advocates genocide as if they were merely
holding an opinion rather than promoting a prescription for murderous mass
action.

I don't think this is about someone befriending someone else who merely has a
different, detestable point of view. This is palpably worse.

This is about befriending someone who advocates for withholding the right to
live -- in a sense, for taking away the right of millions to _have_ any point
of view. I think that's a big difference.

I'm saddened to learn that she was Aaron Swartz's romantic interest. And I'm
saddened that no comments here seem to have noticed that this is simply not
about a mere disagreement.

